Evaluation of Due Date Assignment Rules for Dynamically Arriving Projects

摘要

This research is concerned with the problem of assigning due dates and scheduling projects to meet those due dates in a system where resources are constrained and new projects arrive continuously. In particular, the objective is to evaluate various combinations of due date assignment rules and scheduling heuristics which minimize project completion time and meets the project due date. This research: 1) develops a framework for the dynamic, constrained multiple resource, multi-project scheduling problem; 2) develops and evaluates a number of due date assignment rules; 3) develops and evaluates a number of multi-project scheduling heuristics for the dynamic environment; and 4) presents a simulation model which could be used for academic research on several multi resource scheduling problems. A number of the due date assignment rules that are examined in this study are derivations or extensions of due date assignment rules found in dynamic, job shop scheduling research. The rules are, for the most part, easy to implement and could lead to substantial improvement in estimating/establishing job completion dates. Keywords: computerized simulation.