Resource allocation in stochastic, finite-capacity, multi-project systems through the cross entropy methodology

This paper addresses the problem of resource allocation in a finite-capacity, stochastic (random) and dynamic multi-project system. The system is modeled as a queuing network that is controlled by limiting the number of concurrent projects. We propose a Cross Entropy based approach to determine near-optimal resource allocations to the entities that execute the projects. The performance of the suggested approach is demonstrated through numerical experiments and compared to that of a heuristic, rough-cut based method.