Perspectives in Modern Project Scheduling

Operations Research began as a field with the mathematical scheduling of a massive project—logistically supplying Europe with military equipment and goods during the 2nd World War. Today project scheduling research continues to grow in the variety of its theoretical models, in its magnitude, and in its application. As the world becomes more interrelated and complex, the wider its research is applied to an increasing number of project scheduling problems.

The book surveys the current state-of-the-art in this realm of operations research with chapters written by the respective leading experts on each topic. It will cover the range of the key models in the field, including deterministic, probabilistic, single- and multi-mode, single- and multi-objective, and a general model on discrete-continuous resources. Recent solution algorithms are systematically examined. The book summarizes the current developments and theoretical achievements in the field. These new developments include project uncertainty and grid resource management.

PERSPECTIVES IN MODERN PROJECT SCHEDULING systematically presents this dynamically developing area in three parts. Part I discusses new models of the project management process that are being developed. They include an alternative to the well-known PERT technique, consideration of disturbances during the project realization, introduction of new constraints like due dates or setup times, as well as a general discussion on classification of resources.

Part II outlines and evaluates the new algorithms that have been developed to solve the strongly NP-hard resource constrained project scheduling efficiently with acceptable accuracy. New lower bounds for the RCPSP are proposed, followed by smart justification technique and a series of Metaheuristics. Finally, a neural network approach is introduced.

Part III is devoted to new areas of applications of the project management models and the algorithms — for example, pharmaceutical research, grid computing, factory pick-up of new cars, batch scheduling in process industries and make-to-order (project driven) manufacturing — that have been developed to solve project scheduling problems in these application areas.

The book will be of interest to academics and students in project management and scheduling in Business Schools, Operations Research/Management Science, Computer Science & Engineering, Systems Analysis, and Applied Mathematics. In addition, decision makers, consultants and practitioners in industry, government and service organizations will also be interested in this book.