Heuristic approaches to discrete-continuous project scheduling problems to minimize the makespan

In this paper some discrete-continuous project scheduling problems to minimize the makespan are considered. These problems are characterized by the fact that activities of a project simultaneously require for their execution discrete and continuous resources. A class of these problems is considered where the number of discrete resources is arbitrary, and one continuous, renewable, limited resource occurs. A methodology for solving the defined problems is presented. The continuous resource allocation problem is analyzed. An exact, as well as a heuristic approach to the problem is discussed. The idea of the continuous resource discretization is described, and a special case of the problem with identical processing rate functions is analyzed. Some computational experiments for evaluating the efficiency of the proposed heuristic approaches are presented. Conclusions and directions for future research are given.