An efficient evolutionary algorithm for the deadline problem in project management

Abstract

This article presents an efficient evolutionary algorithm applied to the deadline scheduling in project management, a NP-hard problem with major relevance in software engineering and scheduling activities. The evolutionary algorithm has been specifically designed to provide accurate and efficient solutions, by using operators that allow realistic problem instances to be solved. Efficient numerical results are reported in the experimental analysis performed on standard problem instances. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed evolutionary algorithm is able to outperform one of the best well-known deterministic techniques for the problem in reduced execution times, specially on highly complex instances.