Uncertain resource leveling problem

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Ke, Hua | Zhao, Chenkai^{; *}

Affiliations: School of Economics and Management, Tongji University, Shanghai, China

Correspondence: [*] Corresponding author. Chenkai Zhao, School of Economics and Management, Tongji University, Shanghai 200092, China. Tel.: +86 18817598428; E-mail: 5zck@tongji.edu.cn.

Abstract: Resource leveling problem is to make a schedule for the minimization of resource fluctuation subject to precedence constraint and other specific constraints. When indeterminacies come into play, the leveled baseline schedule obtained by solving deterministic resource leveling problem can hardly be executed as planned and this schedule may even become infeasible. In this paper, on the basis of uncertainty theory, we consider an uncertain resource leveling problem in which activity durations are estimated by experts. In order to deal with these estimations, three uncertainty-theory-based project scheduling models are proposed and we utilize revised estimation of distribution algorithms to search quasi-optimal schedules. Numerical experiments are also provided to illustrate the effectiveness of the algorithms.

Keywords: Project scheduling, uncertainty theory, resource leveling, estimation of distribution algorithm

DOI: 10.3233/JIFS-17493

Journal: Journal of Intelligent & Fuzzy Systems, vol. 33, no. 4, pp. 2351-2361, 2017