A variable neighbourhood search algorithm for the constrained task allocation problem

A variable neighbourhood search algorithm that employs new neighbourhoods is proposed for solving a task allocation problem whose main characteristics are: ( i) each task requires a certain amount of resources and each processor has a capacity constraint which limits the total resource of the tasks that are assigned to it; (ii) the cost of solution includes fixed costs when using processors, task assignment costs, and communication costs between tasks assigned to different processors. A computational study shows that the algorithm performs well in terms of time and solution quality relative to other local search procedures that have been proposed.