An electromagnetism algorithm for optimizing Multi-mode resource constrained project scheduling problem by using regression and approximation

The present research focuses on the deterministic multi-mode resource constrained project scheduling problem in which the objective is to minimize the present value of the earliness – tardiness penalties of the project activities. Electromagnetism optimization methodology is developed to optimize the problem. Our algorithm includes two main phases. In the first phase, an initial sequence is built by applying Electromagnetism procedure and in the second phase, the finish times are calculated by a linear model. We use a new approach based on linear approximation and rewrite the zero-one objective function as a linear function. Our procedure is based on two approaches: a. approximation approach b. regression approach Computational experiments on the benchmark datasets show that the linear approximation approach to find the answer is faster but regression has less average distance of the best (lowest) answer.