Dear all, I am a newbie here, this is my first post. I have looked over a few algorithms and have searched this board for my question but have not been able to narrow down to a clear answer. I am looking for any pointers/code/advice to help decide how to solve the following problem. I have to write a program to suggest the starting time of a job. There is 1 CPU, and there are n jobs already scheduled on it and we know their run times. I can assume a run time (maybe a median of the known run times or something) for this new job. The constraint being at no time should there be more than m jobs running in parallel. I think this problem is relatively simple. For a hammer and tongs solution, I have implemented a quick-sort kinds binary cleaving program which starts with a random time of the day, say, 13:00, and checks if one more process can be started at that time, it accepts the "assumed" run time of the new process and finds if the number of jobs will become greater than m during the assumed run time of the new process. If not, success! else, I cleave the two sides of the time chosen 00:00-12:59 and 13:01-23:59 (of course I can add the assumed run time to 13:01 to make a better choice of the window/range) to get the midway time position and check there and so on. Can there be a more formal solution to this problem? Like maybe based on the Knapsack algorithm or something.. any advice. Also, what could be a good measure of the "assumed" run time, I'm thinking median. I do realize that this question is a bit vague. Thanks in advance, -J