A Novel Approach for Multi-Resource Planning in Construction Engineering

Abstract

Resource planning is considered as an important factor for the success of construction projects. The main challenge in multi-project scheduling environment is represented by the limitation of resources. The optimum scheduling means the right time to allocate the available resources to activities of construction projects. This paper presents a new approach for solving multi-resource multiproject scheduling (MRMPS) problem in order to minimize total make-span of concurrently implemented projects. The developed approach generates the best scheduling based on a new combination of two priority rule, Maximum successors and minimum negative impact (MSMNI). The first priority rule allocates resources to activities based on maximum successors (MS) for candidate activities for increase the candidate activities in the next iteration of scheduling. This means, achieving maximum utilization of resources in each time period before departure to another time period. In second priority rule, we choose activity implementation according to the minimum negative impact (MNI) of implemented activity. A numerical example and experimental results show that the proposed approach is more efficient than previous approaches in the same field.