Study on the optimization of duration for repetitive projects considering spatial interference effects in operations

In the field of project duration optimization, a substantial amount of research has already been conducted. Although these studies have made significant contributions to project management, they remain somewhat theoretical. Few researchers have addressed the issue of workspace interference among workers, which is common in construction processes, as a point of entry for optimizing duration. Therefore, we believe that there is room for further improvement in this area of research. This paper focuses on repetitive construction projects, considering the effects of workspace interference during actual construction. Through agent-based modeling, we simulate the construction environment to determine the relationship between crew size and unit duration changes. The findings reveal that agent-based models demonstrate high reliability in simulating worker efficiency. Furthermore, we propose a model for solving optimal duration based on simulation results, using a genetic algorithm, and analyze the calculation results, speed, and complexity of the genetic algorithm with a heuristic approach. The results indicate that the genetic algorithm has advantages in handling duration optimization problems with slightly more than 10 tasks.