A NEW EVM-DRIVEN AND RISK-AWARE INDEX RULE PROPOSAL FOR PROJECT SCHEDULING AND CONTROL USING WHITTLE APPROACH

Abstract

This paper deals with the problem of scheduling project tasks under uncertainty and with limited resources. In this context and under an EVM-driven project control, we formulate a risk-aware scheduling model as a Markov Decision Process, and then we derive a simple index rule using Whittle approach. By means of this method we obtain a metric per-task state that measures the dynamic service priority of a single task; it consists in allocating resources to the tasks with the current highest productivity of using the resource. The designed scheduling solution is evaluated in a realistic scenario. The results indicate that the proposed index rule improves project performance.