Robust Proactive Project Scheduling Model for the Stochastic Discrete TimeCost Trade-Off Problem

Abstract EN

We study the project budget version of the stochastic discrete time/cost trade-off problem (SDTCTP-B) from the viewpoint of the robustness in the scheduling.

Given the project budget and a set of activity execution modes, each with uncertain activity time and cost, the objective of the SDTCTP-B is to minimize the expected project makespan by determining each activity’s mode and starting time.

By modeling the activity time and cost using interval numbers, we propose a proactive project scheduling model for the SDTCTP-B based on robust optimization theory.

Our model can generate robust baseline schedules that enable a freely adjustable level of robustness.

We convert our model into its robust counterpart using a form of the mixed-integer programming model.

Extensive experiments are performed on a large number of randomly generated networks to validate our model.

Moreover, simulation is used to investigate the trade-off between the advantages and the disadvantages of our robust proactive project scheduling model.