Solving project scheduling problems with resource constraints via an event list-based evolutionary algorithm

There are various scheduling problems with resource limitations and constraints in the literature that can be modeled as variations of the Resource Constrained Project Scheduling Problem (RCPSP). This paper proposes a new solution representation and an evolutionary algorithm for solving the RCPSP. The representation scheme is based on an ordered list of events, that are sets of activities that start (or finish) at the same time. The proposed solution methodology, namely SAILS, operates on the event list and relies on a scatter search framework. The latter incorporates an Adaptive Iterated Local Search (AILS), as an improvement method, and integrates an event-list based solution combination method. AILS utilizes new enriched neighborhoods, guides the search via a long term memory and applies an efficient perturbation strategy. Computational results on benchmark instances of the literature indicate that both AILS and SAILS produce consistently high quality solutions, while the best results are derived for most problem data sets. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.