Title: Behaviour of constrained resource heuristics in project scheduling

Authors: Ghaleb Y. Abbasi, Ihab A. Haddadin

Addresses: Industrial Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering and Technology, University of Jordan, Amman, Jordan. SRS International, 2000 15th Street, North Arlington, VA 22201, USA

Abstract: Resource management is an important element in project management. This paper examines the potential existence of a mathematical relationship between the performance of heuristics used in scheduling constrained-resource projects and the characteristic features, called summary measures, of such networks. Such a relationship selects a certain heuristic to schedule a single project within the minimum duration of multiple and fixed requirements of constrained resources. One hundred and thirty-five networks were scheduled and tested using six heuristics. These heuristics were investigated for their performance relative to ten selected summary measures, five resource-related measures, four time-related measures, and one-shape measure. All the different stages were programmed using a program written in Turbo-Basic. The program developed performed scheduling and resource allocation using the six heuristics investigated, and calculated the summary measures for every test network. A numerical example is presented. Conclusions are drawn concerning the use and behaviour of these heuristics in project management.

Keywords: constrained project scheduling; heuristics; project management; network summary measures.

DOI: 10.1504/IJCAT.2002.000289

International Journal of Computer Applications in Technology, 2002 Vol.15 No.1/2/3, pp.138-146

Published online: 15 Jul 2003 *

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