《On the discrete time》.pdf

Applied Mathematics and Computation 181 (2006) 1305–1312 /locate/amc On the discrete time, cost and quality trade-off problem Hamed R. Tareghian, Seyyed Hassan Taheri * Faculty of Mathematical Sciences, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, Iran Department of Mathematics, University of Khayam, Mashhad, Iran Abstract In this paper a solution procedure is developed to study the tradeoffs among time, cost and quality in the management of a project. This problem assumes the duration and quality of project activities to be discrete, non-increasing functions of a single non-renewable resource. Three inter-related integer programming models are developed such that each model opti- mizes one of the given entities by assigning desired bounds on the other two. Different forms of quality aggregations and effect of activity mode reductions are also investigated. The computational performance of the models is presented using a numerical example. 2006 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Keywords: Project management; Discrete time; Cost and quality trade-off problem 1. Introduction The discrete time–cost trade-off problem, hereafter referred to as DTCTP, is a well-known problem from the project management literature (see e.g. [1,2]). The instances of this problem are the so-called projects that consist of a finite set A of activities together with a partial order on A. The DTCTP occurs when the dura- tion of project activities are a discrete non-increasing function of a single non-renewable resource committed to them. Any activity, ij 2 A, may be executed in say, k different modes, where the rth mode (1 6 r 6 k) takes tijr time and costs an amount cijr of money. Without loss of generality, it is assumed that all values of