A Memetic Algorithm to Time-Cost Trade off in Project Scheduling

摘要

One of the key important issues in project management is trade off between cost and time in such a way that the project is completed in the shortest time and minimum cost. Memetic Algorithm (MA) is a practical approach for such optimization problems. In this paper, an algorithm is presented to solve the Time-Cost Tradeoff Problem using MA. In this algorithm in order to search the problem space a control variable is used. Also an intelligent operator based on hill climbing technique is presented to approximate to the project's optimal point. Comparing this algorithm with Siemens classical algorithm shows the higher speed of proposed algorithm because in this algorithm many computations of paths in project's network graph are not needed.