A hybrid metaheuristic for resource-constrained project scheduling with flexible resource profiles

Martin Tritschler, Anulark Naber and Rainer Kolisch

European Journal of Operational Research, 2017, vol. 262, issue 1, 262-273

Abstract: We consider a generalization of the resource-constrained project scheduling problem (RCPSP), namely the RCPSP with flexible resource profiles (FRCPSP) in discrete time periods. In the FRCPSP, for each activity the given resource requirement is allocated in a variable number of contiguous periods in which the activity is processed. As the resource allocation can be adjusted between time periods, the resulting resource profile of the activity becomes flexible. The FRCPSP consists of scheduling activities and determining for each activity a resource profile and, thus, a duration in order to minimize the makespan. We propose a Hybrid Metaheuristic for the FRCPSP. It contains the Flexible Resource Profile Parallel Schedule Generation Scheme which employs the concepts of delayed scheduling and non-greedy resource allocation, embedded in a genetic algorithm. The best-found schedules are further improved in a variable neighborhood search by transferring resource quantities between selected activities. The results of a computational study demonstrate that the proposed method yields significantly better solutions than three benchmark methods on problem instances with up to 200 activities.

Keywords: Project scheduling; Flexible resource profiles; Schedule generation scheme; Metaheuristics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0377221717301893
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ejores:v:262:y:2017:i:1:p:262-273

DOI: 10.1016/j.ejor.2017.03.006

Access Statistics for this article

European Journal of Operational Research is currently edited by Roman Slowinski, Jesus Artalejo, Jean-Charles. Billaut, Robert Dyson and Lorenzo Peccati

More articles in European Journal of Operational Research from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().