Optimize work load schedule in Project

Question

Greetings!

 have a task list and accomplishment of each task requires certain effort (in days). Besides I have 3 workers (pieces of equipment) and want to optimize their schedule in such a way that all workers and always busy.

Once a worker complete the task it starts doing next task in the queue on the next day.

Can I do this kind of schedule optimization using Project?

Thank you.

Answer 1

Trevor,

Middle of the next century? Wow, what happened to your faith in "algorithm science"? :-)

John

Answer 2

Dear Trevor,

Thank you for sharing the insight.

I was a discovery for me that such simple optimization is a hard mathematical problem.

Can you suggest good reading or review on the PM optimization problems and its solutions, please?

Answer 3

All scheduling problems are hard problems. I believe that the kind of optimisation tools you are dreaming of might be accessible sometime in the middle of the next century. Meanwhile, we have readily accessible tools now which enable us to model our projects and make informed management decisions which enable us to approach but never reach some ideal goal of optimisation. Given that "optimisation" has many possible definitions, depending on whatever one's desired objective might be, you are better off accepting a plan for a project which is at least feasible, which is a reasonable and acceptable compromise between conflicting objectives.

Accessible software tools which can perform the mathematics for Critical Path Method have only been available for a few decades. The algorithms have only existed for a few more. Linear Programming, and immensely powerful optimisation branch of mathematics has only been developed since the early 50s.

Answer 4

Dear John,

Thank you for clarification.

Are you aware about any 3rd-party schedule optimization software that, in theory, would help?

Answer 5

Andrey Kazak,

Well yes and no. Tasks can be set up to be performed in sequence with standard finish-to-start (FS) dependencies but Project does not have the capability to optimize anything such as insuring any given resource is always assigned full time. The latter is up to you, the program manager, to manage time and resources.

I want to also clarify the term you used, "task effort". In Project effort is amount of work expended by one or more resources to accomplish a task. It is normally expressed in hours. Duration is the time span during which the task is performed and it is normally expressed in days, weeks, or months. Those days, weeks and months are all in working time (i.e. 8 hour day or 40 hour week). A standard working month is 20 days with no variance for the number of days in a calendar month. Work and duration do not necessarily have a one to one relationship.

Johh