Scatter search for multi-mode resource-constrained project scheduling problems

In this paper the multi-mode resource-constrained project scheduling problem is considered. Activities are non-preemptable, resources are renewable, and the objective is to minimize the project duration (or makespan). A local search metaheuristic-scatter search is proposed to solve this strongly NP-hard problem. A comprehensive computational experiment is described, performed on a set of instances based on standard test problems constructed by the proGen project generator. The performance of this scatter search algorithm is compared with the performance of other published algorithms for multi-mode resource-constrained project scheduling problem, the results are analyzed and discussed and some conclusions are given.