A Metaheuristic Solution Approach for the Time-constrained Project Scheduling Problem

In this paper, a metaheuristic solution procedure for the Time-Constrained Project Scheduling Problem is proposed, in which additional resources can be temporarily allocated to meet a given deadline. The problem consists of determining a schedule such that the project is completed on time and that the total additional cost for the resources is minimized. For this problem, an artificial immune system is proposed, in which each solution is represented by a vector of activity start times. A local search procedure, which tries to shift cost causing activities, is applied to each population schedule. Computational experiments are applied to modified resource-constrained project scheduling problem benchmark instances and reveal promising results.