Critical Path Method in a Project Network using Ant Colony Optimization

摘要

Critical Path Method (CPM) is useful for planning, analyzing, controlling the progress and the completion of large and complex projects. The ant colony optimization (ACO) algorithms are applied to solve many complex combinatorial optimization problems, such as the traveling salesman problem, the vehicle routing problem, the problem of graph coloring, the quadratic assignment problem, the problem of network traffic optimization, the job-shop scheduling problem, etc. hi this paper, we present a study of enhanced ant colony optimization algorithm for tackling project management problem using critical path method. In particular, we propose an empirical estimation approach to evaluate the time duration of the network constructed by the ants. The proposed method is investigated for a selected project network. The results demonstrate that compared to conventional methods, the method proposed in this paper is more effective in determining the critical path and subcritical paths.