The Scientific World Journal
Volume 2014, Article ID 731081, 7 pages
http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/731081
Scheduling Projects with Multiskill Learning Effect
College of Management and Economics, Tianjin University, No. 92 Weijin Road, Nankai District, Tianjin 300072, China
Received 3 November 2013; Accepted 24 December 2013; Published 10 February 2014
Academic Editors: Q. Cheng and J. Yang
Copyright © 2014 Hong Zha and Lianying Zhang. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Abstract
We investigate the project scheduling problem with multiskill learning effect. A new model is proposed to deal with the problem, where both autonomous and induced learning are considered. In order to obtain the optimal solution, a genetic algorithm with specific encoding and decoding schemes is introduced. A numerical example is used to illustrate the proposed model. The computational results show that the learning effect cannot be neglected in project scheduling. By means of determining the level of induced learning, the project manager can balance the project makespan with total cost.