Multi-Criteria Multi-Modal Fuzzy Project Scheduling in Construction Industry

The construction project managers often face the challenges to compromise among different conflicting aspects of a project, especially for the criteria of time, cost, quality, and environment in a multi-modal project. This leads to a multi-criteria multi-modal project scheduling decision making problem. The complexity in the project scheduling is concentrated on the search for an ideal level of balance among all the conflicting criteria. In fact, the tradeoff among these criteria is determined by the modal selection and the duration reduction applied within the selected mode in a multi-modal project. Therefore, it is important to improve the optimality and effectiveness of modal selection that significantly contributes to the success of a project. In this chapter, the introduction and statement of a discrete time-cost-environment tradeoff problem (DTCETP) for large-scale construction systems with multiple modes under fuzzy uncertainty are presented. The modelling process of DTCETP is explained in detail. Since the DTCETP belongs to the class of non-deterministic polynomial-time hard problems, a fuzzy-based adaptive-hybrid genetic algorithm is developed to efficiently find feasible solutions. Finally, the case study of Jinping-II Hydroelectric Project is employed as a practical application example.