Heuristics for the RCPSP with partially renewable resources

Task

Partially renewable resources represent a generalization of both renewable and non-renewable resources treated comprehensively in the RCPSP. In the RCPSP with partially renewable resources (RCPSP/ϖ), resource availabilities are defined over time intervals of the planning horizon. This allows in particular to model practical problems of personnel scheduling, since the resource availability at a certain point in time does not have to be fixed in advance. Due to the heavy nature of the RCPSP/ϖ, heuristics have been predominantly developed in the literature to determine approximate solutions. Your task is to first prepare a literature review of already developed heuristics for the RCPSP/ϖ with the aim of minimizing project duration. You are then to develop your own heuristic for the RCPSP/ϖ and compare it with a suitable heuristic from the literature by performing a performance analysis.

Your tasks:

  • Familiarization with the RCPSP/ϖ problem.
  • Describing the problem and highlighting the differences with renewable and non-renewable resources.
  • Prepare a literature review on heuristics of the RCPSP/ϖ with the aim of minimizing project duration.
  • Develop your own heuristic for the problem at hand.
  • Carry out a performance comparison between the developed heuristic and a selected heuristic from the literature.

You will have the opportunity to work on a current research topic and expand both theoretical and practical knowledge in the field of business research/operations research. The work is aimed at students of economics and mathematics with an interest in mathematical modeling and optimization. A willingness to learn a programming language and a good command of English for literature research are required. Literature:

  • Böttcher, J., Drexl, A., Kolisch, R., Salewski, F. (1999): Project Scheduling Under Partially Renewable Resource Constraints. Management Science 45, 543--559.
  • Alvarez-Valdes, R., Crespo, E., Tamarit, J.M., Villa, F. (2006): A Scatter Search Algorithm for Project Scheduling Under Partially Renewable Resources. Journal of Heuristics 12, 95--113.
  • Alvarez-Valdes, R., Crespo, E., Tamarit, J.M., Villa, F. (2008): GRASP and Path Relinking for Project Scheduling Under Partially Renewable Resources. European Journal of Operational Research 189, 1153--1170.

For further information, please contact Mareike Karnebogen (mareike.karnebogen@tu-clausthal.de).