Mathematical Programming and Financial Objectives for Scheduling Projects

by Alf Kimms

Overview

Mathematical Programming and Financial Objectives for Scheduling Projects focuses on decision problems where the performance is measured in terms of money. As the title suggests, special attention is paid to financial objectives and the relationship of financial objectives to project schedules and scheduling. In addition, how schedules relate to other decisions is treated in detail. The book demonstrates that scheduling must be combined with project selection and financing, and that scheduling helps to give an answer to the planning issue of the amount of resources required for a project. The author makes clear the relevance of scheduling to cutting budget costs.
The book is divided into six parts. The first part gives a brief introduction to project management. Part two examines scheduling projects in order to maximize their net present value. Part three considers capital rationing. Many decisions on selecting or rejecting a project cannot be made in isolation and multiple projects must be taken fully into account. Since the requests for capital resources depend on the schedules of the projects, scheduling taken on more complexity. Part four studies the resource usage of a project in greater detail. Part five discusses cases where the processing time of an activity is a decision to be made. Part six summarizes the main results that have been accomplished.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781461355618
Publisher:	Springer US
Publication date:	10/23/2012
Series:	International Series in Operations Research & Management Science , #38
Edition description:	Softcover reprint of the original 1st ed. 2001
Pages:	187
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.02(d)

Table of Contents

1. Focus.- 2. Modeling Projects.- 3. Central Problem.- 4. Resource-Constrained Scheduling.- 5. Network Decomposition.- 6. Relaxation of Resource Constraints.- 7. Computational Studies.- 8. Capital Rationing.- 9. Budget Elimination.- 10. Computational Studies.- 11. Resource Leveling.- 12. Optimization Guided Scheduling I.- 13. Optimization Guided Scheduling II.- 14. Computational Studies.- 15. Crashing.- 16. Preprocessing.- 17. Network Decomposition.- 18. Computational Studies.- 19. Concluding Remarks.- 20. Future Work.

Editorial Reviews

Kimms (U. of Kiel, Germany) presents the mathematical modeling techniques firms can use to determine the financial outcomes of choosing and scheduling projects, whether they are buildings, software, or any other one-time non-routine tasks. Although the focus is on the impact of scheduling on finances, the impact of other decision factors, as they interact with scheduling, are also examined. After introducing some of the core concepts of project management, Kimm presents separate sections examining scheduling for the maximization of net present value, capital rationing, and resource usage. A final section summarizes the presented material. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)