Journal
EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF OPERATIONAL RESEARCH
Volume 249, Issue 2, Pages 717-727Publisher
ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV
DOI: 10.1016/j.ejor.2015.08.066
Keywords
Buffer management; Schedule monitoring; Activity sensitivity; Schedule risk; Action threshold
Funding
- National Natural Science Foundation of China [71271097, 71201119]
- China Scholarship Council
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Critical Chain Scheduling and Buffer Management (CC/BM) has shown to provide an effective approach for building robust project schedules and to offer a valuable control tool for coping with schedule variability. Yet, the current buffer monitoring mechanism faces a problem of neglecting the dynamic feature of the project execution and related activity information when taking corrective actions. The schedule risk analysis (SRA) method in a traditional PERT framework, on the other hand, provides important information about the relative activity criticality in relation to the project duration which can highlight management focus. It is implied, however, that control actions are independent from the current project schedule performance. This paper attempts to research these defects of both tracking methods and proposes a new project schedule monitoring framework by introducing the activity cruciality index as a trigger for effective expediting to be integrated into the buffer monitoring process. Furthermore, dynamic action threshold settings that depend on the project progress as well as the buffer penetration are presented and examined in order to exhibit a more accurate control system. Our computational experiment demonstrates the relative dominance of the integrated schedule monitoring methods compared to the predominant buffer management approach in generating better control actions with less effort and an increased tracking efficiency, especially when the increasing buffer trigger point is combined with decreasing sensitivity action threshold values. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. and Association of European Operational Research Societies (EURO) within the International Federation of Operational Research Societies (IFORS). All rights reserved.
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