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Important classes of reactions for the proactive and reactive resource-constrained project scheduling problem

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Abstract

The proactive and reactive resource-constrained project scheduling problem (PR-RCPSP), that has been introduced recently (Davari and Demeulemeester, 2017), deals with activity duration uncertainty in a very unique way. The optimal solution to an instance of the PR-RCPSP is a proactive and reactive policy (PR-policy) that is a combination of a baseline schedule and a set of required transitions (reactions). In this research, we introduce two interesting classes of reactions, namely the class of selection-based reactions and the class of buffer-based reactions, the latter in fact being a subset of the class of selection-based reactions. We also discuss the theoretical relevance of these two classes of reactions. We run some computational results and report the contributions of the selection-based reactions and the buffer-based reactions in the optimal solution. The results suggest that although both selection-based reactions and buffer-based reactions contribute largely in the construction of the optimal PR-policy, the contribution of the buffer-based reactions is of much greater importance. These results also indicate that the contributions of non-selection-based reactions (reactions that are not selection-based) and selection-but-not-buffer-based reactions (selection-based reactions that are not buffer-based) are very limited.

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Notes

  1. Robustness refers to the ability of tolerating variabilities that may affect the feasibility of a schedule.

  2. Note that the models introduced in Davari and Demeulemeester (2017) only find the optimal PR-policies over different subsets of PR-policies. Finding a globally optimal PR-policy is computationally intractable, although, it is theoretically achievable.

  3. RESCON is an educational software for the deterministic resource-constrained project scheduling problem (http://www.econ.kuleuven.be/rescon/).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. CODeS, Department of Computer Science & imec-ITEC, KU Leuven KULAK, Etienne Sabbelaan 53, Box 7659, 8500, Kortrijk, Belgium

    Morteza Davari

  2. Department of Decision Sciences and Information Management, Research Center for Operations Management, Faculty of Business and Economics, KU Leuven, Naamsestraat 69, 3000, Louvain, Belgium

    Morteza Davari & Erik Demeulemeester

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  1. Morteza Davari
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  2. Erik Demeulemeester
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Correspondence to Morteza Davari.

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Davari, M., Demeulemeester, E. Important classes of reactions for the proactive and reactive resource-constrained project scheduling problem. Ann Oper Res 274, 187–210 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10479-018-2899-7

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