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Using resource scarceness characteristics to solve the multi-mode resource-constrained project scheduling problem

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Abstract

In the past decades, resource parameters have been introduced in project scheduling literature to measure the scarceness of resources of a project instance. In this paper, we incorporate these resource scarceness parameters in the search process to solve the multi-mode resource constrained project scheduling problem, in which multiple execution modes are available for each activity in the project. Therefore, we propose a scatter search algorithm, which is executed with different improvement methods, each tailored to the specific characteristics of different renewable and nonrenewable resource scarceness values. Computational results prove the effectiveness of the improvement methods and reveal that the procedure is among the best performing competitive algorithms in the open literature.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Ghent University, Tweekerkenstraat 2, 9000, Gent, Belgium

    Vincent Van Peteghem

  2. Operations and Technology Management Centre, Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School, Reep 1, 9000, Gent, Belgium

    Mario Vanhoucke

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  1. Vincent Van Peteghem
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  2. Mario Vanhoucke
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Correspondence to Mario Vanhoucke.

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Van Peteghem, V., Vanhoucke, M. Using resource scarceness characteristics to solve the multi-mode resource-constrained project scheduling problem. J Heuristics 17, 705–728 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10732-010-9152-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10732-010-9152-0

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