CPM/LOB Scheduling Method for Project Deadline Constraint Satisfaction

This paper presents a methodology to improve CPM/LOB scheduling method for deadline constraint satisfaction. A complete and simple heuristic approach called "heuristic line of balance" (HLOB) is introduced for scheduling projects with serial activities. It employs four heuristic rules and their appropriate combination in addition to seeking CPM/LOB initial calculation. As an improvement to the HLOB algorithm, the "search-based heuristic line of balance" (SHLOB) algorithm is also presented, which is more efficient as projects grow in size. Finally, a complete mathematical version of the LOB model in the form of mixed integer nonlinear programming (MINLP) is applied for verification of the proposed models. Two simple case studies and a hypothetical large-scale highway project are used to test the performance of the improved models. Due to the results of this paper, HLOB and SHLOB are able to present optimum/near optimum solutions in a much more economical way that may justify their widespread use. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.