Keywords: construction management, scheduling, resource allocation, resource levelling, optimisation, genetic algorithms.

The resource-constrained scheduling problem is one of the most challenging and sizeable ones in the framework of project management. In order to reduce the problem size, the typical problem formulation considers a few alternative resource execution modes for each project activity. In typical construction and other projects, however, several execution modes can be realised following the trade off between the resources used and the activity duration. In this paper, an optimisation method for multi-objective resource-constrained scheduling is developed which evaluates several resource-duration alternatives. The optimisation aims at minimising the cumulative cost that results from resource overallocation, project deadline exceedance, and day-by-day resource fluctuations. All three sub-objectives are represented by cost functions after assigning unit cost values to each deviation from the corresponding goal. As a result of the large number of activity execution alternatives, a genetic algorithm has been employed for the optimisation. The algorithm has been extensively tested with several test cases and the evaluation has indicated that it can provide adequate and balanced solutions with regard to the three objectives and that these solutions are better than those provided by commercial project scheduling software.

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