Different Codifications and Metaheuristic Algorithms for the Resource Renting Problem with Minimum and Maximum Time Lags

Summary

Most work in project scheduling problems has been done with so-called regular objective functions, where a solution S never dominates another solution S’ if no activity is scheduled earlier in S than in S’. This has provided with techniques and metaheuristic frameworks to create heuristic algorithms for these kinds of problems, something which does not exist in the nonregular case. One of these problems is the Resource Renting Problem, which models the renting of resources. In this paper we compare the quality of three algorithms for this problem, one adapted from the regular case, another specially designed for the problem and a third that might be adapted for other problems. We will also show that two of these algorithms are capable of outperforming a branch-and-bound procedure that exists for the problem.