CONCURRENT PROJECT SCHEDULING AND MATERIAL PLANNING: A GENETIC ALGORITHM APPROACH

Abstract

Scheduling projects incorporated with materials ordering results in a more realistic problem. This paper deals with the combined problem of project scheduling and material ordering. The purpose of this paper is to minimize the total cost of this problem by determining the optimal values of activity duration, activity nish time and the material ordering schedule subject to constraints. We employ a genetic algorithm approach to solve it. Elements of the algorithm, such as chromosome structure, untness function, crossover, mutation and local search operations are explained. The results of the experimentation are quite satisfactory.