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Predetermined intervals for start times of activities in the stochastic project scheduling problem

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  • Illana Bendavid
  • Boaz Golany

Abstract

This paper proposes a new methodology to schedule activities in projects with stochastic activity durations. The main idea is to determine for each activity an interval in which the activity is allowed to start its processing. Deviations from these intervals result in penalty costs. We employ the Cross-Entropy methodology to set the intervals so as to minimize the sum of the expected penalty costs. The paper describes the implementation of the method, compares its results to other heuristic methods and provides some insights towards actual applications. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2011

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  • Illana Bendavid & Boaz Golany, 2011. "Predetermined intervals for start times of activities in the stochastic project scheduling problem," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 186(1), pages 429-442, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:annopr:v:186:y:2011:i:1:p:429-442:10.1007/s10479-010-0733-y
    DOI: 10.1007/s10479-010-0733-y
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Sobel, Matthew J. & Szmerekovsky, Joseph G. & Tilson, Vera, 2009. "Scheduling projects with stochastic activity duration to maximize expected net present value," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 198(3), pages 697-705, November.
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    2. 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.
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    5. Junguang Zhang & Dan Wan, 2021. "Determination of early warning time window for bottleneck resource buffer," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 300(1), pages 289-305, May.

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