EVOLUTIONARY OPTIMIZATION OF RESOURCE ALLOCATION IN REPETITIVE CONSTRUCTION SCHEDULES

Abstract

Repetitive construction projects are common in a number of different situations such as highway construction and housing projects. Several approaches and models have been presented for modeling repetitive construction projects as well as for optimizing resource allocation for these types of projects. This paper presents a model that uses genetic algorithms to optimally assign resources to repetitive activities in order to minimize the overall project duration as well as the number of interruption days. The model presented in this paper is a straightforward formulation that can be easily modified and expanded for any problem through its spreadsheet implementation, which reduces the modeling time for typical problems extensively. The model outperforms other models in terms of finding a solution with less interruption days. In addition, users of the proposed model can interactively examine tradeoffs between the number of interruption days and the overall project duration.