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OPTIMISING NET PRESENT VALUE USING PRIORITY RULE-BASED SCHEDULING

Tantisuvanichkul, Vacharee

[Thesis]. Manchester, UK: The University of Manchester; 2014.

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Abstract

This research is focused on project scheduling with the aim to capture the monetary objectives of the project in the form of the maximisation of Net Present Value (NPV). In addition, this research is also highlighted key project management practices and scheduling methods. Project scheduling is very attractive for researchers and it has recently been drawn considerable attention because of the high cost of capital and the significant effect of the time value of money. This is the principal motivating factor behind this study.Project-scheduling problem is solved by priority rule-based heuristic methods in this study. The idea behind heuristic algorithms is to rank the activities by some rules. This research proposes a new rule called m-CCF with improved performance from the existing one. The m-CCF is also embedded in serial and parallel schedule generation schemes and is extended by implementing in a forward and backward strategy. The experiments are conducted to evaluate the performance of the proposed technique measuring the NPV generated for a particular project. This research also presents a framework summarising the previous research on project scheduling techniques. It is found that the m-CCF results in higher NPVs than any other heuristics. A series of different projects are examined to validate the potential of the m-CCF technique. The main findings of the research discover that the m-CCF is worthwhile to be employed in priority rule-based scheduling technique. Furthermore, the main findings suggest that it is beneficial to utilise forward-backward solution for scheduling improvement and selecting the schedule with the largest NPV among those available.In conclusion, this research contributes to existing knowledge by developing the combination of m-CCF priority rule methods and backward–forward scheduling. This can be considered as a good direction to develop further heuristics that can be exploited as a powerful tool in project planning and control systems.