Project planning through optimization

Summary form only given as follows. Projects exposed to an uncertain environment must deal with effective integration of various planning elements and optimization of project parameters. Time cost and quality are the prime objectives of a project that are to be optimized to fulfil the objective of project achievement. Moreover, in uncertain environments, there exists a lot of other conflicting objectives that may also need to be optimized. These objectives are characterized by varying degrees of conflict. Uncertain environments cause several changes in a project plan throughout its life, demanding the project plan to be totally flexible. Goal programming (GP), a multiple criteria decision making technique, offers a good solution for this project planning problem. This paper presents an integrated project planning model which acts as a means of project control during changing environment. The model is applied to plan a petroleum pipeline construction project for demonstrating its effectiveness.