IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/inm/ormnsc/v46y2000i5p710-723.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Scheduling Resource-Constrained Projects Competitively at Modest Memory Requirements

Author

Listed:
  • Arno Sprecher

    (Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel, Institut für Betriebswirtschaftslehre, Lehrstuhl für Produktion und Logistik, Olshausenstra\beta e 40, 24098 Kiel, Germany)

Abstract

We consider the resource-constrained project scheduling problem. The purpose of this paper is to direct the focus to a branch-and-bound concept that can, by simple adaptations, operate on a wide range of problem settings. The general approach can, e.g., deal with multimode problems, resource availability varying with time, and a wide range of objectives. Even the simple assembly line balancing problem of type-1 can be competitively approached with some modifications. Although the algorithm is the most general and simple one currently available for resource-constrained project scheduling, the computational performance can compete with the best approaches available for the single-mode problem. The algorithm uses far less memory than the state-of-the-art procedure, i.e., 256 KB versus 24 MB, for solving the standard benchmark set with projects consisting of 32 activities within comparable time. If both approaches are allowed to make limited use of memory, i.e., 256 KB, then more than 97% of the benchmark instances can be solved within fractions of the time required by the current state-of-the-art procedure. The truncated version of our algorithm achieves at 256 KB approximately the results of the truncated version of the state-of-the-art approach at 24 MB. Since in general the memory requirements exponentially grow with the number of activities the project consists of, memory will become a critical resource, and the strategy to access previously stored information will gain fundamental importance when solving larger projects.

Suggested Citation

  • Arno Sprecher, 2000. "Scheduling Resource-Constrained Projects Competitively at Modest Memory Requirements," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 46(5), pages 710-723, May.
  • Handle: RePEc:inm:ormnsc:v:46:y:2000:i:5:p:710-723
    DOI: 10.1287/mnsc.46.5.710.12044
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.46.5.710.12044
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1287/mnsc.46.5.710.12044?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Brucker, Peter & Knust, Sigrid & Schoo, Arno & Thiele, Olaf, 1998. "A branch and bound algorithm for the resource-constrained project scheduling problem," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 107(2), pages 272-288, June.
    2. Sprecher, Arno & Kolisch, Rainer & Drexl, Andreas, 1995. "Semi-active, active, and non-delay schedules for the resource-constrained project scheduling problem," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 80(1), pages 94-102, January.
    3. Rainer Kolisch & Arno Sprecher & Andreas Drexl, 1995. "Characterization and Generation of a General Class of Resource-Constrained Project Scheduling Problems," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 41(10), pages 1693-1703, October.
    4. Sprecher, Arno & Drexl, Andreas, 1998. "Multi-mode resource-constrained project scheduling by a simple, general and powerful sequencing algorithm," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 107(2), pages 431-450, June.
    5. Erik Demeulemeester & Willy Herroelen, 1992. "A Branch-and-Bound Procedure for the Multiple Resource-Constrained Project Scheduling Problem," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 38(12), pages 1803-1818, December.
    6. Aristide Mingozzi & Vittorio Maniezzo & Salvatore Ricciardelli & Lucio Bianco, 1998. "An Exact Algorithm for the Resource-Constrained Project Scheduling Problem Based on a New Mathematical Formulation," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 44(5), pages 714-729, May.
    7. Erik L. Demeulemeester & Willy S. Herroelen, 1997. "New Benchmark Results for the Resource-Constrained Project Scheduling Problem," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 43(11), pages 1485-1492, November.
    8. F. Brian Talbot & James H. Patterson, 1978. "An Efficient Integer Programming Algorithm with Network Cuts for Solving Resource-Constrained Scheduling Problems," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 24(11), pages 1163-1174, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kolisch, R. & Padman, R., 2001. "An integrated survey of deterministic project scheduling," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 29(3), pages 249-272, June.
    2. Hartmann, Sönke, 2011. "Project scheduling with resource capacities and requests varying with time," Working Paper Series 01/2011, Hamburg School of Business Administration (HSBA).
    3. Andrei Horbach, 2010. "A Boolean satisfiability approach to the resource-constrained project scheduling problem," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 181(1), pages 89-107, December.
    4. Sophie Demassey & Christian Artigues & Philippe Michelon, 2005. "Constraint-Propagation-Based Cutting Planes: An Application to the Resource-Constrained Project Scheduling Problem," INFORMS Journal on Computing, INFORMS, vol. 17(1), pages 52-65, February.
    5. Dieter Debels & Mario Vanhoucke, 2007. "A Decomposition-Based Genetic Algorithm for the Resource-Constrained Project-Scheduling Problem," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 55(3), pages 457-469, June.
    6. Kolisch, Rainer & Hartmann, Sonke, 2006. "Experimental investigation of heuristics for resource-constrained project scheduling: An update," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 174(1), pages 23-37, October.
    7. Salim Rostami & Stefan Creemers & Roel Leus, 2018. "New strategies for stochastic resource-constrained project scheduling," Journal of Scheduling, Springer, vol. 21(3), pages 349-365, June.
    8. Bagloee, Saeed Asadi & Asadi, Mohsen, 2015. "Prioritizing road extension projects with interdependent benefits under time constraint," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 196-216.
    9. Chen, Jiaqiong & Askin, Ronald G., 2009. "Project selection, scheduling and resource allocation with time dependent returns," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 193(1), pages 23-34, February.
    10. V. Van Peteghem & M. Vanhoucke, 2009. "Using Resource Scarceness Characteristics to Solve the Multi-Mode Resource-Constrained Project Scheduling Problem," Working Papers of Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Ghent University, Belgium 09/595, Ghent University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration.
    11. Guo, Weikang & Vanhoucke, Mario & Coelho, José, 2023. "A prediction model for ranking branch-and-bound procedures for the resource-constrained project scheduling problem," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 306(2), pages 579-595.
    12. Dayal Madhukar & Verma, Sanjay, 2015. "Multi-processor Exact Procedures for Regular Measures of the Multi-mode RCPSP," IIMA Working Papers WP2015-03-25, Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, Research and Publication Department.
    13. Amadeu A. Coco & Christophe Duhamel & Andréa Cynthia Santos, 2020. "Modeling and solving the multi-period disruptions scheduling problem on urban networks," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 285(1), pages 427-443, February.
    14. Abdollah Arasteh, 2020. "Considering Project Management Activities for Engineering Design Groups," SN Operations Research Forum, Springer, vol. 1(4), pages 1-29, December.
    15. Debels, Dieter & De Reyck, Bert & Leus, Roel & Vanhoucke, Mario, 2006. "A hybrid scatter search/electromagnetism meta-heuristic for project scheduling," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 169(2), pages 638-653, March.
    16. D. Debels & M. Vanhoucke, 2005. "A Decomposition-Based Heuristic For The Resource-Constrained Project Scheduling Problem," Working Papers of Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Ghent University, Belgium 05/293, Ghent University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration.
    17. Aidin Delgoshaei & Timon Rabczuk & Ahad Ali & Mohd Khairol Anuar Ariffin, 2017. "An applicable method for modifying over-allocated multi-mode resource constraint schedules in the presence of preemptive resources," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 259(1), pages 85-117, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Brucker, Peter & Drexl, Andreas & Mohring, Rolf & Neumann, Klaus & Pesch, Erwin, 1999. "Resource-constrained project scheduling: Notation, classification, models, and methods," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 112(1), pages 3-41, January.
    2. Kolisch, R. & Padman, R., 2001. "An integrated survey of deterministic project scheduling," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 29(3), pages 249-272, June.
    3. Sprecher, Arno, 1998. "Non-equivalent search strategies for resource-constrained project scheduling," Manuskripte aus den Instituten für Betriebswirtschaftslehre der Universität Kiel 493, Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel, Institut für Betriebswirtschaftslehre.
    4. Chen, Jiaqiong & Askin, Ronald G., 2009. "Project selection, scheduling and resource allocation with time dependent returns," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 193(1), pages 23-34, February.
    5. Jan Böttcher & Andreas Drexl & Rainer Kolisch & Frank Salewski, 1999. "Project Scheduling Under Partially Renewable Resource Constraints," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 45(4), pages 543-559, April.
    6. Sönke Hartmann, 1998. "A competitive genetic algorithm for resource‐constrained project scheduling," Naval Research Logistics (NRL), John Wiley & Sons, vol. 45(7), pages 733-750, October.
    7. Pfeifer, Jeremy & Barker, Kash & Ramirez-Marquez, Jose E. & Morshedlou, Nazanin, 2015. "Quantifying the risk of project delays with a genetic algorithm," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 170(PA), pages 34-44.
    8. Sophie Demassey & Christian Artigues & Philippe Michelon, 2005. "Constraint-Propagation-Based Cutting Planes: An Application to the Resource-Constrained Project Scheduling Problem," INFORMS Journal on Computing, INFORMS, vol. 17(1), pages 52-65, February.
    9. Guo, Weikang & Vanhoucke, Mario & Coelho, José, 2023. "A prediction model for ranking branch-and-bound procedures for the resource-constrained project scheduling problem," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 306(2), pages 579-595.
    10. Abdollah Arasteh, 2020. "Considering Project Management Activities for Engineering Design Groups," SN Operations Research Forum, Springer, vol. 1(4), pages 1-29, December.
    11. Dieter Debels & Mario Vanhoucke, 2007. "A Decomposition-Based Genetic Algorithm for the Resource-Constrained Project-Scheduling Problem," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 55(3), pages 457-469, June.
    12. Schirmer, Andreas & Riesenberg, Sven, 1997. "Parameterized heuristics for project scheduling: Biased random sampling methods," Manuskripte aus den Instituten für Betriebswirtschaftslehre der Universität Kiel 456, Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel, Institut für Betriebswirtschaftslehre.
    13. Debels, Dieter & De Reyck, Bert & Leus, Roel & Vanhoucke, Mario, 2006. "A hybrid scatter search/electromagnetism meta-heuristic for project scheduling," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 169(2), pages 638-653, March.
    14. Dayal Madhukar & Verma, Sanjay, 2014. "Breadth-first and Best-first Exact Procedures for Regular Measures of the Multi-mode RCPSP," IIMA Working Papers WP2014-10-04, Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, Research and Publication Department.
    15. Sprecher, Arno, 1999. "Network decomposition techniques for resource-constrained project scheduling," Manuskripte aus den Instituten für Betriebswirtschaftslehre der Universität Kiel 505, Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel, Institut für Betriebswirtschaftslehre.
    16. Sprecher, Arno, 1996. "Solving the RCPSP efficiently at modest memory requirements," Manuskripte aus den Instituten für Betriebswirtschaftslehre der Universität Kiel 425, Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel, Institut für Betriebswirtschaftslehre.
    17. Hartmann, Sönke, 1999. "Self-adapting genetic algorithms with an application to project scheduling," Manuskripte aus den Instituten für Betriebswirtschaftslehre der Universität Kiel 506, Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel, Institut für Betriebswirtschaftslehre.
    18. Dayal Madhukar & Verma, Sanjay, 2015. "Multi-processor Exact Procedures for Regular Measures of the Multi-mode RCPSP," IIMA Working Papers WP2015-03-25, Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, Research and Publication Department.
    19. Hartmann, Sönke & Drexl, Andreas, 1997. "Project scheduling with multiple modes: A comparison of exact algorithms," Manuskripte aus den Instituten für Betriebswirtschaftslehre der Universität Kiel 430, Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel, Institut für Betriebswirtschaftslehre.
    20. Klein, Robert & Scholl, Armin, 1999. "Computing lower bounds by destructive improvement: An application to resource-constrained project scheduling," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 112(2), pages 322-346, January.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:inm:ormnsc:v:46:y:2000:i:5:p:710-723. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Asher (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/inforea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.