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Project planning with alternative technologies in uncertain environments

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  • Creemers, Stefan
  • De Reyck, Bert
  • Leus, Roel

Abstract

We investigate project scheduling with stochastic activity durations to maximize the expected net present value. Individual activities also carry a risk of failure, which can cause the overall project to fail. In the project planning literature, such technological uncertainty is typically ignored and project plans are developed only for scenarios in which the project succeeds. To mitigate the risk that an activity’s failure jeopardizes the entire project, more than one alternative may exist for reaching the project’s objectives. We propose a model that incorporates both the risk of activity failure and the possible pursuit of alternative technologies. We find optimal solutions to the scheduling problem by means of stochastic dynamic programming. Our algorithms prescribe which alternatives need to be explored, and how they should be scheduled. We also examine the impact of the variability of the activity durations on the project’s value.

Suggested Citation

  • Creemers, Stefan & De Reyck, Bert & Leus, Roel, 2015. "Project planning with alternative technologies in uncertain environments," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 242(2), pages 465-476.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ejores:v:242:y:2015:i:2:p:465-476
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ejor.2014.11.014
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    Cited by:

    1. Xiong, Jian & Leus, Roel & Yang, Zhenyu & Abbass, Hussein A., 2016. "Evolutionary multi-objective resource allocation and scheduling in the Chinese navigation satellite system project," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 251(2), pages 662-675.
    2. Kaut, Michal & Vaagen, Hajnalka & Wallace, Stein W., 2021. "The combined impact of stochastic and correlated activity durations and design uncertainty on project plans," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 233(C).
    3. Bordley, Robert F. & Keisler, Jeffrey M. & Logan, Tom M., 2019. "Managing projects with uncertain deadlines," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 274(1), pages 291-302.
    4. Servranckx, Tom & Vanhoucke, Mario, 2019. "A tabu search procedure for the resource-constrained project scheduling problem with alternative subgraphs," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 273(3), pages 841-860.
    5. Aditya Vedantam & Ananth Iyer, 2021. "Capacity Investment under Bayesian Information Updates at Reporting Periods: Model and Application," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 30(8), pages 2707-2725, August.
    6. Stefan Creemers, 2019. "The preemptive stochastic resource-constrained project scheduling problem," Post-Print hal-02992618, HAL.
    7. He-Yau Kang & Amy H. I. Lee & Tzu-Ting Huang, 2016. "Project Management for a Wind Turbine Construction by Applying Fuzzy Multiple Objective Linear Programming Models," Energies, MDPI, vol. 9(12), pages 1-15, December.
    8. Hazır, Öncü & Ulusoy, Gündüz, 2020. "A classification and review of approaches and methods for modeling uncertainty in projects," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 223(C).
    9. Creemers, Stefan, 2018. "Moments and distribution of the net present value of a serial project," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 267(3), pages 835-848.
    10. Öncü Hazir & Gündüz Ulusoy, 2020. "A classification and review of approaches and methods for modeling uncertainty in projects," Post-Print hal-02898162, HAL.
    11. Wenhui Zhao & Nicholas G. Hall & Zhixin Liu, 2020. "Project Evaluation and Selection with Task Failures," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 29(2), pages 428-446, February.
    12. Szmerekovsky, Joseph G. & Venkateshan, Prahalad & Simonson, Peter D., 2023. "Project scheduling under the threat of catastrophic disruption," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 309(2), pages 784-794.
    13. Creemers, Stefan, 2019. "The preemptive stochastic resource-constrained project scheduling problem," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 277(1), pages 238-247.
    14. Hermans, Ben & Leus, Roel & Looy, Bart Van, 2023. "Deciding on scheduling, secrecy, and patenting during the new product development process: The relevance of project planning models," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 116(C).
    15. Rostami, Salim & Creemers, Stefan & Wei, Wenchao & Leus, Roel, 2019. "Sequential testing of n-out-of-n systems: Precedence theorems and exact methods," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 274(3), pages 876-885.
    16. Creemers, Stefan, 2018. "Maximizing the expected net present value of a project with phase-type distributed activity durations: An efficient globally optimal solution procedure," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 267(1), pages 16-22.

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