Article ID: | iaor20097333 |
Country: | United Kingdom |
Volume: | 59 |
Issue: | 6 |
Start Page Number: | 812 |
End Page Number: | 822 |
Publication Date: | Jun 2008 |
Journal: | Journal of the Operational Research Society |
Authors: | Lusa A, Potts C N |
Keywords: | programming: assignment, heuristics |
A variable neighbourhood search algorithm that employs new neighbourhoods is proposed for solving a task allocation problem whose main characteristics are: (i) each task requires a certain amount of resources and each processor has a capacity constraint which limits the total resource of the tasks that are assigned to it; (ii) the cost of solution includes fixed costs when using processors, task assignment costs, and communication costs between tasks assigned to different processors. A computational study shows that the algorithm performs well in terms of time and solution quality relative to other local search procedures that have been proposed.