Multi-Period Project Selection and Scheduling for Defence Capability-Based Planning

Abstract

Future force design is a crucial task that assists in the creation of an effective future defence force. The primary objective of this task is to select a set of projects, within a fixed planning window and subject to budgetary constraints, that will lead to improved capabilities. While inherently related to the well-known multi-period knapsack problem, addressing this problem in the context of the defence sector gives rise to a number of unique nuances and associated challenges. Furthermore, the literature pertaining to the selection and scheduling of projects for capability-based planning in the defence sector is rather limited. To address this literature gap, this paper formalizes a multi-period project selection and scheduling problem inspired by future force design. Numerous heuristics, both random and deterministic, along with a hybrid genetic algorithm, are employed to optimize a set of instances of the proposed problem formulation with various characteristics derived from real-world, public defence data made available by the Australian Department of Defence.