A heuristic approach for the critical chain project scheduling problem based on resource flows

Abstract

The Critical Chain Project Scheduling Problem (CCPSP) aims to obtain robust baseline schedules by optimizing the size and insertion of buffers for projects with uncertain activity durations. To overcome the challenge of handling new resource conflicts due to insertion of buffers, we develop a novel approach based on resource flow to add additional precedence relationships that resolve resource conflicts. Our priority-rule based heuristic is easy to implement, fast, and effective. A comprehensive computational experiment is conducted to examine the performance of a large set of priority rules and their combinations, which is then estimated using regression analysis with the problem characteristics as independent variables. Our algorithm outperforms the existing benchmark method for the addressed problem in both solution quality and efficiency, and provides project managers an efficient and effective tool to handle large-scale projects under uncertainty.