A note on an iterative forward backward scheduling technique with reference to a procedure by Li and Willis

Abstract

In this note we propose an iterative scheduling technique which consists of consecutive forward/backward scheduling passes aimed at reducing the project duration by smoothing out the project's resource profile. The idea of iterative scheduling is initiated by Li and Willis in their related paper. The only common point between their scheduling technique and the one proposed here is the iterative feature. The two techniques differ both in algorithmic aspects and in the way activities are selected for scheduling at a decision point. In the technique proposed here activities are evaluated by well-reputed dispatching rules and a conflict based decision-making process called Local Constraint Based Analysis (LCBA). The results on benchmark problems from the literature demonstrate that LCBA specifically exploits the flexible activity time windows provided by the iterative scheduling technique.