Using meta-heuristics for project scheduling under mode identity constraints

Mode identity and resource constrained project scheduling problem (MIRCPSP) is a substantial generalization of the well-known multi-mode problem. It arises when certain activities in the project are interdependent. That is, the set of all activities in the project are partitioned into disjoint subsets where all activities forming one subset have to be processed in the same mode. This paper addresses project scheduling problem with resource and mode identity constraints to minimize the project makespan. This problem is strongly NP-hard and three meta-heuristic algorithms namely imperialist competitive algorithm, simulated annealing and differential evolution are proposed to solve it. In order to improve the quality of the employed algorithms a local search and learning module is combined with the meta-heuristic algorithms. The performance of the algorithms is evaluated on 180 test problems by statistically comparing their solution in term of the objective function and computational times. The obtained computational results indicate that the integration of the learning module and the proposed algorithm is efficient and effective. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.