Agent-based project scheduling

Agent technology oers a new way of thinking about many of the classic problems in operations research. Among these areproblems such as project scheduling subject to resource constraints. In this paper, we develop and experimentally evaluate eightagent-based algorithms for solving the multimode, resource-constrained project scheduling problem. Our algorithms dier in thepriority rules used to control agent access to resources. We apply our approach to a 51-activity project originally published byMaroto and Tormos [1]. We solve the problem using two types of agent-based systems: (i) a system of simple, reactive agents thatwe call basic agents; and (ii) a system of more complex, deliberative agents that we call enhanced agents. Of the eight priority rulestested, we ®nd that priority based on shortest processing time performs best in terms of schedule quality when applied by basicagents while the priority based on earliest due date performs best when applied by enhanced agents. In comparing agents acrosspriority rules, we ®nd that enhanced agents generate much better schedules (with makespans up to 66% shorter in some cases) andrequire only slightly more computation time.