ProGen/πx – an instance generator for resource-constrained project scheduling problems with partially renewable resources and further extensions

Project scheduling has long been an area of intensive research, but until recently most efforts have been dedicated to developing solution procedures and generalizing models, with little work done on generating problem instances. Additionally, if labor time regulations have to be taken into consideration, the classical resource-constrained project scheduling problem (RCPSP) cannot be used for many problems in manpower scheduling. This paper introduces several extensions to the RCPSP aimed at modeling such problems, and a problem instance generator based on the project generator ProGen incorporating these extensions. Thus, it becomes possible to thoroughly test solution procedures for, e.g., audit-staff scheduling, crew scheduling and timetabling problems. Preliminary computational results are given that were obtained with a greedy randomized solution method using priority rules specifically tailored to the generalized model.