Minimization of the availability cost of resources for a project under a deadline constraint using an adapted tabu search method

This paper proposes a heuristic procedure to minimize the availability cost of resources allocated to a project under time constraint. The cost of the project is function of the cost of each resource allocated and the project duration. The procedure objective is to find the best resource combination that minimizes the project cost while respecting the project deadline. It uses an adapted Tabu Search method to find a schedule respecting the project deadline with a given resource allocation. Experimental results are obtained from a set of 110 projects available in the literature.