A procedure for calculating the weight-matrix of a neural network for resource leveling

Abstract

In this paper, a new approach for the computation of the weight-matrix of a neural network (NN) for resource leveling (RL) is introduced. The proposed method achieves significantly improved efficiency over the conventional technique of employing the functional expressions of the weights, by exploiting the structural properties of the matrices arising in the formulation of the RL problem as a quadratic zero-one optimization. These structural properties are identified, and stated in terms of template-matrix contributions of the cost and constraint functions of the quadratic optimization, to the weight-matrix of the NN. It is shown that by using these templates, the weight-matrix can be filled-in directly, based on the early start schedule of a project.