An efficient hybrid differential evolution based serial method for multimode resource-constrained project scheduling

Abstract

The Multimode Resource-Constrained (MRC) problem aims at finding the start times and execution modes for the activities of a project that minimizes project duration under current precedence constraints and resource limitations. This study integrates the fuzzy c-means clustering technique and the chaotic technique into the Differential Evolution to develop the Fuzzy Clustering Chaotic-based Differential Evolution (FCDE) algorithm, an efficient hybrid approach to solving MRC and other related problems. Within the FCDE, the chaos prevents the optimization algorithm from premature convergence and the fuzzy c-means clustering acts as several multi-parent crossover operators for utilizing population information efficiently and enhance convergence efficiency. Further, this study applies a serial method to reflect individual-user priorities into the active schedule and the project duration calculations. Experiments run indicate that the proposed FCDE-MRC obtains optimal results more reliably and efficiently than the benchmark algorithms considered. The FCDE-MRC is a promising alternative methodology to handling resource-constrained problems.