Maximizing projects' profitability, environmental score, and quality: a multi-project scheduling and material...

Area of Science:

• Construction Management
• Operations Research
• Environmental Engineering

Background:

• Project planning often overlooks cost trade-offs, leading to inaccurate scheduling and increased expenses, particularly in multi-project settings.
• Optimizing project costs, environmental impact, and quality simultaneously is crucial for sustainable and efficient project execution.

Purpose of the Study:

• To propose a combined approach for the multi-project scheduling and material ordering problem (MPSMOP).
• To maintain a proper trade-off among various project costs while optimizing environmental impact and project quality alongside economic criteria.
• To develop a tri-objective optimization model for maximizing net present value, environmental score, and total quality.

Main Methods:

• Quantifying supplier environmental performance.
• Measuring activity quality using the Construction Quality Assessment System.
• Developing and solving a tri-objective mathematical model for MPSMOP using customized metaheuristics.

Main Results:

• The proposed MPSMOP model effectively balances economic, environmental, and quality objectives in project scheduling and material ordering.
• Customized metaheuristics demonstrated efficiency in solving the complex, nondeterministic polynomial optimization problem.
• The framework's validity was confirmed through application to railway construction projects in Iran.

Conclusions:

• The developed framework provides a robust solution for the multi-project scheduling and material ordering problem.
• Managers can utilize the model's decision-making options to enhance project economic, environmental, and quality performance.
• This integrated approach is vital for improving overall project management in complex construction environments.