Abstract
In this paper we study the resource-constrained project scheduling problem with weighted earliness–tardinesss penalty costs. Project activities are assumed to have a known deterministic due date, a unit earliness as well as a unit tardiness penalty cost and constant renewable resource requirements. The objective is to schedule the activities in order to minimize the total weighted earliness–tardinesss penalty cost of the project subject to the finish–start precedence constraints and the constant renewable resource availability constraints. With these features the problem becomes highly attractive in just-in-time environments.
We introduce a depth-first branch-and-bound algorithm which makes use of extra precedence relations to resolve resource conflicts and relies on a fast recursive search algorithm for the unconstrained weighted earliness–tardinesss problem to compute lower bounds. The procedure has been coded in Visual C++, version 4.0 under Windows NT. Both the recursive search algorithm and the branch-and-bound procedure have been validated on a randomly generated problem set.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
B. De Reyck, Scheduling projects with generalized precedence relations, exact and heuristic procedures, Ph.D. Dissertation, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium (1998).
B. De Reyck and W. Herroelen, A branch-and-bound procedure for the resource-constrained project scheduling problem with generalized precedence relations, European Journal of Operational Research 111 (1996) 125–174.
B. De Reyck and W. Herroelen, An optimal procedure for the resource-constrained project scheduling problem with discounted cash flows and generalized precedence relations, Computers and Operations Research 25 (1998) 1–17.
E. Demeulemeester and W. Herroelen, A branch-and-bound procedure for the multiple resourceconstrained project scheduling problem, Management Science 38 (1992) 1803–1818.
E. Demeulemeester and W. Herroelen, New benchmark results for the resource-constrained project scheduling problem, Management Science 43 (1997) 1485–1492.
W. Herroelen, P. Van Dommelen and E. Demeulemeester, Project network models with discounted cash flows: A guided tour through recent developments, European Journal of Operational Research 100 (1997) 97–121.
W. Herroelen, E. Demeulemeester and B. De Reyck, A classification scheme for project scheduling problems, in: Project Scheduling Recent Models, Algorithms and Applications, ed. J. Weglarz (Kluwer Academic, 1999) pp. 1-26.
O. Icmeli and S.S. Erengüç, A branch-and-bound procedure for the resource-constrained project scheduling problem with discounted cash flows, Management Science 42 (1996) 1395–1408.
R. Kolisch, A. Sprecher and A. Drexl, Characterization and generation of a general class of resourceconstrained project scheduling problems, Management Science 41 (1995) 1693–1703.
A.A. Mastor, An experimental and comparative evaluation of production line balancing techniques, Management Science 16 (1970) 728–746.
T.L. Pascoe, Allocation of resources-CPM, Revue Française de Recherche Opérationelle 38 (1966) 31–38.
J.H. Patterson, A comparison of exact procedures for solving the multiple resource-constrained project scheduling problem, Management Science 30 (1984) 854–867.
C. Schwindt, A new problem generator for different resource-constrained project scheduling problems with minimal and maximal time lags, WIOR-Report-449, Institut für Wirtschaftstheorie und Operations Research, University of Karlsruhe, Germany (1995).
M. Vanhoucke, E. Demeulemeester and W. Herroelen, An exact procedure for the unconstrained weighted earliness-tardinesss project scheduling problem, Research Report 9907, Department of Applied Economics, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium (1999).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Vanhoucke, M., Demeulemeester, E. & Herroelen, W. An Exact Procedure for the Resource-Constrained Weighted Earliness–Tardiness Project Scheduling Problem. Annals of Operations Research 102, 179–196 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1010958200070
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1010958200070