7. Resource-Constrained Project Scheduling

Resource-constrained project scheduling is a widely discussed project management topic which has roots in and relevance for both academic and practical oriented environments. Due to its inherent problem complexity, it has been the subject of numerous research projects leading to a wide and diverse set of procedures and algorithms to construct resource feasible project schedules. Thanks to its practical value, many of the research results have found their way to practical project management projects. This chapter gives an overview of the project scheduling efforts and needs in order to bring the academics closer to real life projects and vice versa. It gives an extensive overview on the use of resources in dynamic scheduling problems and discusses various scheduling objectives to optimize the schedule to the wishes and needs of the company or project owner. The chapter also gives a set of techniques to validate the quality of the resource feasible baseline schedules and highlights some important features and characteristics that should be taken into account when using scheduling tools.