MULTI-PROJECT SCHEDULING OF CONSTRUCTION PROJECTS WITH CONSTRAINED RESOURCES

Abstract

A company's portfolio in the construction industry includes a variety of projects, many of which are being executed at the same time. In such situations the performance of one project may have a positive or negative impact on the other. This research paper is an attempt to identify the challenges faced in a multi-project environment to propose multi-project scheduling approach, for the purpose of which a systematic review of the past literatures published in well-established journals with specific reference to multi-project environment and constrained resources is carried out and it is found that the major challenge faced in multi-project environment is the division and assignment of resource. A questionnaire survey is conducted to verify the identified challenges from literature and determine the project scenarios faced in the industry. The findings of which indicate that the major challenge faced in multi-project environment is the division and assignment of resources and 87.9% of the total respondents have executed projects in a multi-project environment out of which 76% projects are executed in parallel from start to end. Subsequently, the paper analyzes analytical and heuristic approaches for resource allocation along with a centralized and de-centralized system of scheduling. In the end, the concepts presented in this paper are applied over a live case study and the results of both centralized and de-centralized approach are compared. The data obtained from comparison is analyzed to obtain additional hiring of resources required for the completion of projects and also highlighting the capabilities and limitations of different approaches.