Simulation based construction project schedule optimization: An overview on the state-of-the-art

Construction projects require a multitude of procedures and resources for the high diversity of building concepts. Most of such projects are unique in their design and need individual schedule planning to be realized. In order to develop the required schedules, several complex decisions need to be made and several different factors need to be taken into account, including cost, make span, safety, resource sparsity, delivery schedules and geometric constraints. The problem of scheduling the involved processes in an optimal way is called the resource constrained project scheduling problem (RCPSP) and several solution algorithms are available. In addition, simulation based techniques can be used to address more complex constraints and objectives. This chapter presents an overview of traditional optimization procedures for the RCPSP and bridge the gap to simulation based techniques, which are described in detail.