Task assignment and sequencing decision model under uncertain available time of service providers

Abstract

This paper studies an integrated decision problem on assigning and sequencing tasks to service providers. By considering the uncertain available time of the service providers, a stochastic programming model is proposed on the basis of a finite set of scenarios. Some realistic factors are also taken into account and formulated as some non-linear cost functions, which are linearised in this study. Moreover, a heuristic solution method is designed for solving some extremely large-scale problem cases within a reasonable period of time. Numerical experiments are performed to validate the effectiveness of the proposed model and the efficiency of the proposed solution method.

Keywords:

• Task assignment
• sequencing
• stochastic programming
• heuristic solution