Project Scheduling to Maximize Positive Impacts of Reconstruction Operations

摘要

Since the decline of the Cold War, the risk of major conflict between powerful industrialized nations has significantly decreased. Insecurity in the twenty-first century is forecast to arise rather from the debris of imploding states. Such situations may require intervention--military or otherwise--by concerned states, and the frequency with which these interventions occur is increasing. To meet this new operational challenge, the US military must adapt its planning procedures to account for Security, Stabilization, Transition, and Reconstruction Operations (SSTRO). This research develops a project scheduling based framework for post-conflict reconstruction that prioritizes and schedules reconstruction activities in such a way as to maximize the positive impacts during the initial phase of SSTRO. Specifically, this research proposes to build on the Multimode Resource Constrained Project Scheduling Problem with Generalized Precedence Relations (MM-RCPSP-GPR) using goal programming to maximize the reconstruction operations' positive impact to the local population. This MM-RCPSP-GPR variant is applied to a notional example to illustrate its potential use in post-conflict SSTRO.