IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/conmgt/v27y2009i2p199-211.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Heuristic method for multi-project finance-based scheduling

Author

Listed:
  • Ashraf Elazouni

Abstract

A heuristic method is proposed for scheduling multiple projects subject to cash constraints. The heuristic determines cash availability during a given period, identifies all possible activities' schedules, determines the cash requirements for each schedule, ranks schedules based on the contribution to minimizing the increase in the project duration, schedules all activities of the selected schedule and determines the impact of the scheduled activities on the project cash flow. The effectiveness of the heuristic method was validated by comparing the results with the optimum results obtained by using the integer programming (IP) technique for 15 networks comprising up to 60 activities. The comparison indicated that the solutions obtained using the proposed heuristic are very comparable to the optimum solutions. An example of two concurrent projects was presented to demonstrate the proposed heuristic method. The proposed heuristic offers the ultimate flexibility to enter cash outflows and inflows at the actual occurrence time, the ability to rationalize the scheduling process, the flexibility to either devise or update schedules, and the ability to schedule practical-size multiple projects. Finally, this heuristic can be easily coded in software to help managers schedule projects under finance-constrained conditions.

Suggested Citation

  • Ashraf Elazouni, 2009. "Heuristic method for multi-project finance-based scheduling," Construction Management and Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 27(2), pages 199-211.
  • Handle: RePEc:taf:conmgt:v:27:y:2009:i:2:p:199-211
    DOI: 10.1080/01446190802673110
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01446190802673110
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/01446190802673110?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. A. H. Russell, 1970. "Cash Flows in Networks," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 16(5), pages 357-373, January.
    2. Robert A. Russell, 1986. "A Comparison of Heuristics for Scheduling Projects with Cash Flows and Resource Restrictions," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 32(10), pages 1291-1300, October.
    3. Rema Padman & Dwight E. Smith‐Daniels & Vicki L. Smith‐Daniels, 1997. "Heuristic scheduling of resource‐constrained projects with cash flows," Naval Research Logistics (NRL), John Wiley & Sons, vol. 44(4), pages 365-381, June.
    4. Huan Neng Chiu & Deng Maw Tsai, 2002. "An efficient search procedure for the resource-constrained multi-project scheduling problem with discounted cash flows," Construction Management and Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(1), pages 55-66.
    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. He, Yukang & Jia, Tao & Zheng, Weibo, 2023. "Tabu search for dedicated resource-constrained multiproject scheduling to minimise the maximal cash flow gap under uncertainty," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 310(1), pages 34-52.
    2. Mahir Msawil & Faris Elghaish & Krisanthi Seneviratne & Stephen McIlwaine, 2021. "Developing a Parametric Cash Flow Forecasting Model for Complex Infrastructure Projects: A Comparative Study," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(20), pages 1-26, October.
    3. Yukang He & Tao Jia & Weibo Zheng, 2024. "Simulated annealing for centralised resource-constrained multiproject scheduling to minimise the maximal cash flow gap under different payment patterns," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 338(1), pages 115-149, July.
    4. Yuvraj Gajpal & Ashraf Elazouni, 2015. "Enhanced heuristic for finance-based scheduling of construction projects," Construction Management and Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 33(7), pages 531-553, July.

    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. Yuvraj Gajpal & Ashraf Elazouni, 2015. "Enhanced heuristic for finance-based scheduling of construction projects," Construction Management and Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 33(7), pages 531-553, July.
    2. Nursel Kavlak & Gündüz Ulusoy & Funda Sivrikaya Şerifoğlu & Ş. İlker Birbil, 2009. "Client‐contractor bargaining on net present value in project scheduling with limited resources," Naval Research Logistics (NRL), John Wiley & Sons, vol. 56(2), pages 93-112, March.
    3. M. Vanhoucke, 2006. "A scatter search procedure for maximizing the net present value of a project under renewable resource constraints," Working Papers of Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Ghent University, Belgium 06/417, Ghent University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration.
    4. Wenhui Zhao & Nicholas G. Hall & Zhixin Liu, 2020. "Project Evaluation and Selection with Task Failures," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 29(2), pages 428-446, February.
    5. Bogumiła Krzeszowska, 2013. "Three step procedure for a multiple criteria problem of project portfolio scheduling," Operations Research and Decisions, Wroclaw University of Science and Technology, Faculty of Management, vol. 23(4), pages 55-74.
    6. Kolisch, Rainer & Padman, Rema, 1997. "An integrated survey of project scheduling," Manuskripte aus den Instituten für Betriebswirtschaftslehre der Universität Kiel 463, Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel, Institut für Betriebswirtschaftslehre.
    7. Herroelen, Willy S. & Van Dommelen, Patrick & Demeulemeester, Erik L., 1997. "Project network models with discounted cash flows a guided tour through recent developments," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 100(1), pages 97-121, July.
    8. Mika, Marek & Waligora, Grzegorz & Weglarz, Jan, 2005. "Simulated annealing and tabu search for multi-mode resource-constrained project scheduling with positive discounted cash flows and different payment models," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 164(3), pages 639-668, August.
    9. He, Zhengwen & Wang, Nengmin & Jia, Tao & Xu, Yu, 2009. "Simulated annealing and tabu search for multi-mode project payment scheduling," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 198(3), pages 688-696, November.
    10. Kolisch, R. & Padman, R., 2001. "An integrated survey of deterministic project scheduling," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 29(3), pages 249-272, June.
    11. Huan Neng Chiu & Deng Maw Tsai, 2002. "An efficient search procedure for the resource-constrained multi-project scheduling problem with discounted cash flows," Construction Management and Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(1), pages 55-66.
    12. Kolisch, Rainer, 1996. "Investitionsplanung in Netzwerken," Manuskripte aus den Instituten für Betriebswirtschaftslehre der Universität Kiel 423, Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel, Institut für Betriebswirtschaftslehre.
    13. Thomas Selle & Jürgen Zimmermann, 2003. "A bidirectional heuristic for maximizing the net present value of large‐scale projects subject to limited resources," Naval Research Logistics (NRL), John Wiley & Sons, vol. 50(2), pages 130-148, March.
    14. Kolisch, Rainer & Sprecher, Arno & Drexl, Andreas, 1992. "Characterization and generation of a general class of resource-constrained project scheduling problems: Easy and hard instances," Manuskripte aus den Instituten für Betriebswirtschaftslehre der Universität Kiel 301, Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel, Institut für Betriebswirtschaftslehre.
    15. Yang, Kum Khiong & Tay, Lee Choo & Sum, Chee Chuong, 1995. "A comparison of stochastic scheduling rules for maximizing project net present value," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 85(2), pages 327-339, September.
    16. Kimms, Alf, 1999. "Lagrangean relaxation for scheduling projects under resource constraints to maximize the net present value," Manuskripte aus den Instituten für Betriebswirtschaftslehre der Universität Kiel 504, Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel, Institut für Betriebswirtschaftslehre.
    17. Etgar, Ran & Shtub, Avraham & LeBlanc, Larry J., 1997. "Scheduling projects to maximize net present value -- the case of time-dependent, contingent cash flows," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 96(1), pages 90-96, January.
    18. Vanhoucke, Mario & Demeulemeester, Erik & Herroelen, Willy, 2003. "Progress payments in project scheduling problems," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 148(3), pages 604-620, August.
    19. Dan Zhu & Rema Padman, 1999. "A metaheuristic scheduling procedure for resource‐constrained projects with cash flows," Naval Research Logistics (NRL), John Wiley & Sons, vol. 46(8), pages 912-927, December.
    20. Rostami, Salim & Creemers, Stefan & Leus, Roel, 2024. "Maximizing the net present value of a project under uncertainty: Activity delays and dynamic policies," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 317(1), pages 16-24.

    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:taf:conmgt:v:27:y:2009:i:2:p:199-211. 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 Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/RCME20 .

    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.