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Exact Methods for Resource Leveling Problems

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Handbook on Project Management and Scheduling Vol.1

Part of the book series: International Handbooks on Information Systems ((INFOSYS))

Abstract

Resource leveling problems arise whenever it is expedient to reduce the fluctuations in resource utilization over time, while maintaining a prescribed project completion deadline. Several resource leveling objective functions may be defined, whose consideration results in resource profiles with desired properties, e.g., well-balanced resource profiles or profiles with a minimum number of jump discontinuities. In this chapter, we concentrate on three resource leveling problems that are known from the literature. In order to solve medium-scale instances of the considered problems, an enumeration scheme that uses problem structures is presented. Furthermore, mixed-integer (linear) programming models are introduced, and resource leveling instances are solved using CPLEX 12. In a comprehensive computational study, the performance of the described methods is analyzed.

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Acknowledgements

The benchmarks presented herein and the results obtained (i.e., upper and lower bounds) may be downloaded from the web-page http://www.wiwi.tu-clausthal.de/abteilungen/unternehmensforschung/forschung.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Management and Economics, Clausthal University of Technology, Clausthal-Zellerfeld, Germany

    Julia Rieck & Jürgen Zimmermann

Authors
  1. Julia Rieck
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  2. Jürgen Zimmermann
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Correspondence to Julia Rieck .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Management and Economics, Clausthal University of Technology, Clausthal-Zellerfeld, Germany

    Christoph Schwindt

  2. Institute of Management and Economics, Clausthal University of Technology, Clausthal-Zellerfeld, Germany

    Jürgen Zimmermann

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Rieck, J., Zimmermann, J. (2015). Exact Methods for Resource Leveling Problems. In: Schwindt, C., Zimmermann, J. (eds) Handbook on Project Management and Scheduling Vol.1. International Handbooks on Information Systems. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-05443-8_17

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