A Project Scheduling Method Based on Fuzzy Theory

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

1 Sharif University of Technology and Engineering Research Institute, Ministry of Agricultural Jahad, P. O. Box: 13445-754, Tehran, Iran

2 Department of Industrial Engineering, Sharif University of Technology, P. O Box: 11365-9414, Tehran, Iran

Abstract

In this paper a new method based on fuzzy theory is developed to solve the project scheduling problem under fuzzy environment. Assuming that the duration of activities are trapezoidal fuzzy numbers (TFN), in this method we compute several project characteristics such as earliest times, latest times, and, slack times in term of TFN. In this method, we introduce a new approach which we call modified backward pass (MBP). This approach, based on a linear programming (LP) problem, removes negative and infeasible solutions which can be generated by other methods in the backward pass calculation. We drive the general form of the optimal solution of the LP problem which enables practitioners to obtain the optimal solution by a simple recursive relation without solving any LP problem. Through a numerical example, calculation steps in this method and the results are illustrated.

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