An Advanced Reactive Approach to Solve Extended Resource-Constrained Project Scheduling Problems

This paper introduces a fast and configurable method for solving resource-constrained multi-project scheduling problems, using a multi-aspect decision-making procedure that combines a schedule generation scheme with various task-selection values and priorities. The goal of fast scheduling generation is to support reactive scheduling environments. During calculation each decision aspect is computed to produce numerical values, reflecting the importance of each aspect for candidate selection. These priorities can be tailored to specific optimization objectives. The priorities can be customized according to the objective of the optimization problem. The method was tested on the PSPLIB RCPSP J30 benchmark series to minimize project completion time using eight decision aspects. The average relative deviation from lower bounds was used to evaluate the impact of different decision aspect priorities. Although the focus was not on determining optimal priority values, the study explores the effectiveness of using multiple priority rules simultaneously in a configurable way in reactive scheduling environment. Performance tests confirm that the proposed method is flexible, robust, fast, and effective in solving the examined problem type.