Knowledge-based project control employing heuristic optimisation

Abstract

One particular problem of great commercial significance which professional project engineers confront is that of expeditious control of resources to achieve timely completion of complex plans. A wealth of expertise exists, little if any of which has been formalised, so as to permit the development of computer-based aids for intelligent project control. The paper describes a heuristic algorithm which has been developed in close consultation with expert project engineers. It has been integrated within an intelligent knowledge-based system (IKBS) and the resultant computer tool evaluated in a real-world project management situation. The algorithm incorporates six variables which have been carefully formulated to assess the merit of expediting selected activities in project plans within a hierarchical framework of control strategies. An empirical study of these heuristics, taken in conjunction with the IKBS, is presented, and some parallels are drawn with an expert project engineeer's performance on a typical project plan.