Title: Tactical project planning under uncertainty: fuzzy approach

Authors: Malek Masmoudi; Erwin W. Hans; Alain Haït

Addresses: Université de Saint Etienne, Jean-Monnet, F-42000, Saint-Etienne, France; LASPI, F-42334, IUT de Roanne, Roanne, Université de Lyon, F-42023, Saint Etienne, France ' CHOIR, School of Management and Governance, University of Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands ' Institut Supérieur de l'Aéronautique et de l'Espace (ISAE), Université de Toulouse, Toulouse, France

Abstract: At the tactical planning level in a multi-project environment, uncertainties are inherent to the workloads, and costs may be involved for using non-regular capacity and violating project due dates. We propose an approach to identify whether non-regular capacities might be needed to meet the projects' due dates. This problem is known as rough-cut capacity planning (RCCP) problem under uncertainty. We propose a possibilistic approach, which is based on modelling uncertain workloads with fuzzy sets. We present the resulting fuzzy rough-cut capacity planning (FRCCP), and show that we can use the possibilistic approach to provide a robust solution with a fuzzy resource loading profile that supports managers in decision making. We provide a simulated annealing approach to solve the FRCCP, and test it against several existing RCCP approaches. For the experiments we use real life instances from a shipyard maintenance centre. [Received 23 February 2015; Revised 27 May 2015; Revised 20 August 2015; Revised 12 October 2015; Accepted 17 November 2015]

Keywords: project planning; rough-cut capacity planning; RCCP; uncertainty; workload; fuzzy sets; possibilistic approach; simulated annealing; fuzzy logic; modelling; uncertain workloads; shipyard maintenance centres.

DOI: 10.1504/EJIE.2016.076381

European Journal of Industrial Engineering, 2016 Vol.10 No.3, pp.301 - 322

Published online: 05 May 2016 *

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