A tabu search method for block erection scheduling in shipbuilding with activity resource elasticity

Traditional optimisation method for block erection scheduling in shipbuilding assumes that the activity durations are determined, and usually takes the minimisation of project makespan as the objective. We analyse the activities in the process of block erection, and address the characteristic of activity resource elasticity that the duration of some activities was elastic and could be impressed by the means of increasing the amount of resource availability. In this paper, we propose an optimisation method for block erection scheduling problem in shipbuilding with the objective of minimising the project cost and project deadline, which is an extension of Resource Availability Cost Problem (RACP). The proposed method is a global research algorithm based on tabu search strategy. Experimental results for the simulation proved the effect of the characteristic of activity resource elasticity for the scheduling problem, and tested the performance of our algorithm.