A heuristic treatment of tardiness and net present value criteria in resource constrained project scheduling

Considers the resource-constrained project scheduling problem where cash inflows and outflows are tied to the occurrence of events. The objective is the maximization of the project net present value (NPV) as well as the minimization of project tardiness in the presence of a project due date. Develops hybrid scheduling rules with both NPV and tardiness considerations to enhance both objectives. Experiments extensively with a set of benchmark problems originally designed for the objective of minimizing the project duration. Demonstrates that the hybrid rules developed here are superior in performance with respect to both objectives when compared with well known rules which are developed for the two objectives to minimize the project duration. Demonstrates that the hybrid rules developed here are superior in performance with respect to both objectives when compared with well-known rules which are developed for the two objectives taken individually. Furthermore, the iterative algorithm improves the performance of all tested rules significantly.