Simulated annealing for centralised resource-constrained multiproject scheduling to minimise the maximal cash flow gap under different payment patterns

Yukang He (), Tao Jia () and Weibo Zheng ()
Additional contact information
Yukang He: Xi’an Jiaotong University
Tao Jia: Xi’an Jiaotong University
Weibo Zheng: Xi’an Jiaotong University

Annals of Operations Research, 2024, vol. 338, issue 1, No 5, 115-149

Abstract: Abstract This paper involves a centralised resource-constrained multiproject scheduling problem with four different payment patterns. In the problem, renewable resources can be shared by all the individual projects, and the task is to arrange activities’ start times to minimise the contractor’s maximal cash flow gap. First, based on the problem formulation, we construct an optimisation model for the problem, and through the analysis of the constructed model, we propose some properties of the problem. Then, due to the NP-hardness of the problem, we develop a simulated annealing algorithm and, according to the proposed properties, design a measure to enhance its searching efficiency of the algorithm. Finally, we conduct a computational experiment on an existing dataset to evaluate the performance of the developed algorithm and analyse the effects of key parameters on the objective function value. From the research results, we draw the following conclusions: The improved simulated annealing algorithm is the most promising algorithm for solving the problem being studied, and the effect of the improvement measure varies as the project parameters change. The maximal cash flow gap increases along with the network complexity, modified average utilisation factor of renewable resources, or discount rate per period while it decreases with the increase in the normalised average resource loading factor, variance in modified average utilisation factors, number of milestone activities, advance payment proportion, progress payment proportion, or deadline of projects. Among the four payment patterns, the expense-based and milestone activity-based payment patterns may be the best and worst, respectively, for the contractor to reduce the maximal cash flow gap.

Keywords: Multiproject scheduling; Optimisation model; Simulated annealing; Maximum cash flow gap; Payment pattern (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10479-023-05580-3 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

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:spr:annopr:v:338:y:2024:i:1:d:10.1007_s10479-023-05580-3

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/journal/10479

DOI: 10.1007/s10479-023-05580-3

Access Statistics for this article

Annals of Operations Research is currently edited by Endre Boros

More articles in Annals of Operations Research from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().