Multiheuristic approach for resource leveling problem in construction engineering: Hybrid approach

The fluctuation of required resources causes problems in construction scheduling. Thus, researchers developed resource leveling techniques to minimize the deviation between the resource requirements and the desired resource profile. However, the resource leveling problem, except for small size scheduling problems, cannot be solved with exact optimization methods, because it is defined as a discrete combinatorial problem. Thus, researchers used heuristic approaches to get an acceptable solution that may not necessarily be optimal. A multiheuristic model called a local optimizer and a hybrid model combining the local optimizer with simulated annealing are developed for the solution of resource leveling problems. The computational results indicate that these heuristic models produce reasonably good solutions, and they are viable approaches for complex scheduling networks.