In this paper, we present a new genetic algorithm for the resource-constrained project scheduling problem with discounted cash flows and investigate the trade-off between a project’s net present value and its corresponding lead time. We consider a problem formulation where the pre-specified...

The crew scheduling problem in the airline industry is extensively investigated in the operations research literature since efficient crew employment can drastically reduce operational costs of airline companies. Given the flight schedule of an airline company, crew scheduling is the process of...

In this paper, we present a novel meta-heuristic technique for the nurse scheduling problem (NSP). This well-known scheduling problem assigns nurses to shifts per day taking both hard and soft constraints into account. The objective is to maximize the preferences of the nurses and to minimize...

Recently, a new heuristic algorithm for global optimization has been proposed by Birbil and Fang (2003), referred to as Electromagnetism (EM). This technique is based on the electromagnetism theory of physics, and simulates attraction and repulsion of sample points in order to move towards an...

In this paper we present a genetic algorithm for the multi-mode resource-constrained project scheduling problem (MRCPSP), in which multiple execution modes are available for each of the activities of the project. In contrast to a conventional genetic algorithm, we apply a bi-population genetic...

The interest in activity sensitivity from both the academics and the practitioners lies in the need to focus a project manager's attention on those activities that influence the performance of the project. When management has a certain feeling of the relative sensitivity of the various parts...

The well-known resource-constrained project scheduling problem (RCPSP) schedules project activities within the precedence and renewable resource constraints while minimizing the total lead-time of the project. The basic problem description assumes non-pre-emptive activities with fixed durations,...

The academic accounting literature has established that the conditions under which costing systems in general and Activity Based Costing (ABC) in particular provide accurate costs are very stringent. Less is known, however, about the nature, level and bias of costing errors and their...

Recently, time-switch constraints have been introduced in the literature by Yang and Chen (2000). Basically, these constraints impose a specified starting time on the project activities and force them to be inactive during specified time periods. This type of constraints have been incorporated...

Nursing staff is principally cyclically scheduled in various hospitals in Belgium. The employed cyclic schedules embody, however, only a weak reflection of the ultimate nurse rosters constructed for a specific month. In this paper we investigate the benefits of integrating nurse-specific...