Multi-mode resource constrained project scheduling: scheduling schemes, priority rules and mode selection rules

This work deals with the multi-mode resource-constrained project scheduling problem. In this problem, activities of the project may be executed in more than one operating mode and renewable resource constraints exist. Each activity operation mode has a different duration and requires different amount of renewable resources. The objective function considered is the minimisation of the project completion time. Heuristics based on priority rule are considered as solution procedures for this problem. Both, parallel and serial scheduling generation schemes are described in the multi-mode context. On the basis of a well-known set of project instances, the new heuristics based on priority rules are evaluated against the best ones published. Finally, multi-pass heuristics based on priority rules that outperforms the deterministic multi-pass heuristic previously published are designed.