Direct Solution of Fuzzy Project Crashing Problem with Fuzzy Decision Variables using Tabu Search and Simulated Annealing Algorithms

Project management is a very important field employed for scheduling activities and monitoring the progress, in competitive and fluctuating environments. Project crashing analysis is concerned with shortening the project duration time by accelerating some of its activities at an additional cost. In reality, because of uncertain environment conditions there can be ambiguity in the parameters of the problem. The uncertainty in the parameters can be modeled via fuzzy set theory. Using fuzzy models give the chance of better project scheduling with more stability under uncertain environmental factors. In this study, a fuzzy project crashing problem with fuzzy decision variable - occurrence time of events - and fuzzy normal activity duration times is handled. The fuzzy project crashing problem is solved without any transformation process by employing a fuzzy ranking method and the tabu search and simulated annealing algorithms.