Publication Type

Journal Article

Version

publishedVersion

Publication Date

2-2008

Abstract

An R&D project typically consists of several stages. Due to technological risks, the project may have to be terminated before completion, each stage having a specific likelihood of success. In the project planning and scheduling literature, this technological uncertainty has typically been ignored and project plans are developed only for scenarios in which the project succeeds. In this paper we examine how to schedule projects in order to maximize their expected net present value when the project activities have a probability of failure and when an activity's failure leads to overall project termination. We formulate the problem, show that it is NP-hard, develop a branch-and-bound algorithm that allows us to obtain optimal solutions and provide extensive computational results. In the process, we establish a complexity result for an open problem in single-machine scheduling, namely for the discounted weighted-completion-time objective with general precedence constraints.

Keywords

Project management, scheduling, risk, research and development, analysis of algorithms, computational complexity

Discipline

Business Administration, Management, and Operations | Management Information Systems

Research Areas

Operations Management

Publication

IIE Transactions

Volume

40

Issue

4

First Page

367

Last Page

384

ISSN

0740-817X

Identifier

10.1080/07408170701413944

Publisher

Taylor & Francis: STM, Behavioural Science and Public Health Titles

Embargo Period

8-29-2021

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