Fuzzy-Safety-Buffer approach for project buffer sizing considering the requirements from project managers and customers

This paper proposes a Fuzzy-Safety-Buffer approach for measuring the project buffer size in critical chain project scheduling. The method focuses on the combination of the requirements of the project manages and the customers. Firstly using the trapezoidal fuzzy function, agreement index presents the project managers´ requirement. Then the safety buffer concept derived from the safety stock concept is used to optimize the AI value considering the request of the customers. Finally a function is introduced to integrate two demands using the agreement index and the safety buffer as parameters. With a case study, FSB approach get better results relatively compared with other methods. Furthermore, an extensive analysis is added to indicate the different results with varying continuous variance of the project duration.