Managing Portfolios of Projects Under Uncertainty with Application to Construction Activities

项目往往是在相当不确定的环境中进行的。不确定性可能反映在具体任务的期限和成果以及用于这些任务的资源的有效性上。 在这些不确定的条件下，项目和项目群管理者必须决定如何在许多有竞争需求的项目中分配和管理稀缺资源。 建筑业是这种需求特别迫切的行业。今天，项目规划和调度使用的算法，无论是忽略资源约束，并考虑任务持续时间的不确定性，或忽略任务持续时间的不确定性，并专注于资源约束scheduling.This研究的重点是开发新的计算易处理的建模工具，在现实的多项目规划和调度环境下的不确定性下分配资源。 我们使用的数学方法的一个关键方面是，它提供了一个明确的机制来评估项目（或项目组合）的计划进度与进度将变得不可行（由于任务持续时间和结果的不确定性）的风险水平之间的权衡。这项研究显然适用于建筑项目，以及许多其他工业，商业和公共部门的应用。我们的方法将创建重要的新工具，供项目和项目群经理在许多类型的企业中使用。此外，由于需要在不确定性的存在下工作是工程实践的一个关键因素，重要的是要为学生提供一个接触到不确定性下的项目管理。 为此，我们将开发案例研究和工程项目的基础上，在此建议中所描述的研究硕士。 这些案例研究和项目将支持三个项目的教育：本科土木工程，工程管理和系统工程的工程硕士课程。

Projects are often undertaken in an environment of considerable uncertainty. Uncertainty may be reflected in the duration and outcomes of specific tasks, as well as in the effectiveness of resources applied to them. Project and program managers must decide, in these uncertain conditions, how to allocate and manage scarce resources across many projects that have competing needs. The construction industry is one in which this need is particularly acute. Today, project planning and scheduling is done using algorithms that either ignore the resource constraints and consider uncertainty in task duration, or ignore the uncertainty in task duration and focus on resource-constrained scheduling.This research focuses on developing new computationally tractable modeling tools for allocating resources under uncertainty in realistic multi-project planning and scheduling environments. A key aspect of the mathematical approach we are using is that it provides an explicit mechanism to evaluate the tradeoff between the planned schedule for a project (or portfolio of projects) and the level of risk that the schedule will become infeasible (as a result of uncertainties in the task durations and outcomes). This research has obvious application to construction projects, as well as to many other industrial, commercial and public sector applications. Our approach will create significant new tools for use by project and program managers in many types of undertakings. Furthermore, since the need to work in the presence of uncertainty is a critical element of engineering practice, it is important to provide students with an exposure to project management under uncertainty. To this end, we will develop cases studies and a master of engineering project based on the research described in this proposal. Those case studies and project will support education in three programs: undergraduate civil engineering, and the Master of Engineering programs in engineering management and systems engineering.