Abstract
This paper proposes a new methodology to schedule activities in projects with stochastic activity durations. The main idea is to determine for each activity an interval in which the activity is allowed to start its processing. Deviations from these intervals result in penalty costs. We employ the Cross-Entropy methodology to set the intervals so as to minimize the sum of the expected penalty costs. The paper describes the implementation of the method, compares its results to other heuristic methods and provides some insights towards actual applications.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 429-442 |
Number of pages | 14 |
Journal | Annals of Operations Research |
Volume | 186 |
Issue number | 1 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Jun 2011 |
Keywords
- Cross-entropy
- Flexible commitment
- Gates
- Intervals
- Stochastic project scheduling problem
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- General Decision Sciences
- Management Science and Operations Research