Project Scheduling with Time Windows From Theory to Applications [Paperback]

Project Scheduling is concerned with the allocation of scarce resources over time. The rich optimisation models with time windows that are treated in this book cover a multitude of practical decision problems arising in diverse application areas such as construction engineering or make-to-order production planning.
The book shows how Constraint Propagation techniques from Artificial Intelligence can be successfully combined with Operations Research methods for developing powerful exact and heuristic solution algorithms for a very general class of scheduling problems. Example applications demonstrate the effectiveness of the approach.Project Scheduling is concerned with the allocation of scarce resources over time. The rich optimisation models with time windows that are treated in this book cover a multitude of practical decision problems arising in diverse application areas such as construction engineering or make-to-order production planning.
The book shows how Constraint Propagation techniques from Artificial Intelligence can be successfully combined with Operations Research methods for developing powerful exact and heuristic solution algorithms for a very general class of scheduling problems. Example applications demonstrate the effectiveness of the approach.1 Introduction.- 1.1 Motivation and Objectives.- 1.2 Outline.- 2. Optimisation Model.- 2.1 The General Single-Mode Model.- 2.1.1 Activities and Resources.- 2.1.2 Temporal Constraints.- 2.1.3 The Model.- 2.1.4 Schedules and Performance Measures.- 2.1.5 Domains of Decision Variables.- 2.1.6 Special Cases.- 2.2 Extension to Multiple Execution Modes.- 2.2.1 Modes.- 2.2.2 Resources.- 2.2.3 The Model.- 3 Constraint Propagation.- 3.1 Constraint Satisfaction and Optimisation.- 3.1.1 The Constraint Satisfaction Problem.- 3.1.2 The Constraint Optimisation Problem.- 3.1.3 Constraint Graphs.- 3.2 Concepts of Consistency.- 3.2.1 k-Consistency.- 3.2.2 Domain-Consistency.- 3.2.3 Bound Consistency.- 3.3 ConlÃ