Title

Applying the COMSOAL computer heuristic to the constrained resource allocation problem

Authors

Authors

G. W. DePuy;G. E. Whitehouse

Comments

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Abbreviated Journal Title

Comput. Ind. Eng.

Keywords

COMSOAL; resource allocation; project management; computer heuristic; PROJECT SCHEDULING PROBLEM; MULTIPLE RESOURCE; BRANCH; ALGORITHM; Computer Science, Interdisciplinary Applications; Engineering, ; Industrial

Abstract

Generating a project schedule that meets all activity precedence constraints while minimizing the overall project duration is often difficult. The complex project-scheduling problem is further complicated by the real-world constraint that often a limited number of resources must be allocated to competing activities. This paper investigates the application of the computer method COMSOAL to this resource allocation problem. COMSOAL (Computer Method of Sequencing Operations for Assembly Lines), originally a solution approach for the assembly line balancing problem, is a computer heuristic that can be used to generate a feasible solution to the resource allocation problem at each iteration of the heuristic. A solution methodology of repeatedly running COMSOAL will result in many feasible solutions from which the best is chosen. This solution approach now becomes viable given the increased speed of inexpensive computers. This paper discusses the adaptation of the COMSOAL approach to the resource allocation problem as well as a designed experiment used to investigate the appropriateness of COMSOAL, for a known set of resource allocation test problems. Results from this experiment show COMSOAL is a viable method to solve these resource allocation problems when compared to the results from several well-known resource allocation algorithms and to the optimal solutions. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Journal Title

Computers & Industrial Engineering

Volume

38

Issue/Number

3

Publication Date

1-1-2000

Document Type

Article

Language

English

First Page

413

Last Page

422

WOS Identifier

WOS:000165802000007

ISSN

0360-8352

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