Skill-oriented priority scheduling for solving the Resource Constrained Project Scheduling Problem

Abstract

Project scheduling consists of defining and assigning resources to a set of time-scattered activities. Several economic, business and engineering disciplines are considered for practical application: project management, operations research, software development, systems engineering. In Resource-Constrained Project Scheduling (RCPS), task allocation is determined by resource distribution based on a set of constraints. Poor constraint evaluation and its impact on the project schedule, may lead to project baseline disruptions, therefore to cost failover and company loss. The aim of the current research is to provide a solution for the standard Resource Constrained Project Scheduling Problem (RCPSP) through a hybrid heuristic algorithm based on priority rule scheduling (priority rules, schedule generation schemes). We present a conceptual framework for a software engineering context, where activities of concurrent projects are allocated based on employees' skills to optimize a regular objective of estimated activity duration.