Resource allocation heuristic in construction simulation

Abstract

The quantity of some resources is limited because of project cost constraints. These resources may be required by multiple activities simultaneously during a construction process. In a discrete simulation that models the construction process, tracing and controlling such entities, e.g. resources, is crucial to simulation. This paper presents a resource allocation point (RAP) heuristic that takes into account the dynamic and stochastic charateristics of simulation to enable the activity-based construction simulation system to process a decision-making ability, i.e. allocating the limited resources to the multiple computing activites during simulation. In addition, this paper introduces an activity object-orientated approach that implements the RAP heuristic and speeds up the simulation experimentation through initiating and checking only related activity objects instead of scanning all activities as in a pure activity scanning (AS) simulation strategy.