Title: Efficient robustness measures for the resource-constrained project scheduling problem

Authors: Mohamed Ali Khemakhem; Hédi Chtourou

Addresses: Département Génie Industriel, Ecole Nationale d'Ingénieurs de Tunis, Tunis, Tunisia; B.P. 129 Bureau de la Poste El Ain 3042, Sfax, Tunisia ' Département de Technologie, Institut Préparatoire aux Etudes d'Ingénieurs de Sfax, B.P. 323, Sfax 3018, Tunisia

Abstract: The single-mode resource-constrained project scheduling problem is considered. Traditionally, this problem is solved with the objective of makespan minimisation. But in reality, projects are often subject to diverse sources of uncertainty that could have a negative impact on this objective. That is why, some recent research efforts have focused on the generation of robust project baseline schedules that are protected against possible disruptions that may occur during schedule execution. To provide an accurate estimate of the schedule robustness, they introduced surrogate measures. This paper reviews the main robustness measures (RMs) proposed in the literature. It also presents several new RMs. Using a five-stage approach, the efficiency of all RMs is assessed, in a specific context, by computing the correlation between RMs and a predefined performance measure. The relevance and the efficiency of some new RMs are illustrated. Also, the superiority of the newly proposed RMs over the old ones is statistically proven for a particular perturbation scheme. Hence, these measures could help project managers in discriminating solutions having the same makespan to choose the most robust schedule.

Keywords: RCPSP; resource-constrained project scheduling; uncertainty; robustness measures; simulation; efficiency; performance measures; project management.

DOI: 10.1504/IJISE.2013.053738

International Journal of Industrial and Systems Engineering, 2013 Vol.14 No.2, pp.245 - 267

Published online: 27 Dec 2013 *

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