The construction of stable project baseline schedules

The vast majority of project scheduling efforts assume complete information about the scheduling problem to be solved and a static deterministic environment within which the pre-computed baseline schedule will be executed. In reality, however, project activities are subject to considerable uncertainty, which generally leads to numerous schedule disruptions. It is of interest to develop pre-schedules that can absorb disruptions in activity durations without affecting the planning of other activities, such that co-ordination of resources and material procurement for each of the activities can be performed as smoothly as possible. The objective of this paper is to develop and evaluate various approaches for constructing a stable pre-schedule, which is unlikely to undergo major changes when it needs to be repaired as a reaction to minor activity duration disruptions. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.