SCHEDULING REPETITIVE PROJECTS WITH STOCHASTIC RESOURCE CONSTRAINTS

Scheduling repetitive projects under limitations on the amounts of available resources (labor and equipment) has been an active subject because of its practical relevance. Traditionally, the limitation is specified as a deterministic (fixed) number, such as 1000 labor-hours. The limitation, however, is often exposed to uncertainty and variability, especially when the project is lengthy. This paper presents a stochastic optimization model to treat the situations where the limitations of resources are expressed as probability functions in lieu of deterministic numbers. The proposed model transfers each deterministic resource constraint into a corresponding stochastic one and then solves the problem by the use of a chance-constrained programming technique. The solution is validated by comparison with simulation results to show that it can satisfy the resource constraints with a probability beyond the desired confidence level.