No abstract is provided for this article.
This article aims to make a contribution to theory, as well as to practice, by identifying which project management practices are used by most private organizations in general and by sector of activity. The influence of practitioners’ characteristics in the choice of project management practices and their use in groups are also analyzed. The results show that the most used project management practices are kick-off meetings, activity lists, progress meetings, Gantt charts, and baseline plans; however, differences between activity sectors and practitioners’ characteristics were found. The results also indicate that the most used project management practices are, in fact, used as toolsets.
No abstract is provided for this article.
No abstract is provided for this article.
A “multi-modal” activity is one which can be performed in several modes, or levels, of resource(s) allocation. In this paper we assume that the activities are multi-modal, and each activity may require several resources for its execution. We also assume that the resources may be constrained on their availability over time, and that each activity has its own work contents as a continuous random variable for each of its required resources. We are concerned with establishing a suitable strategy that will focus on the universe of activity modes, selecting only those that will be relevant for the most probable overall project cost. In other words, we choose the most probable modes of activity execution among the theoretical continuum of modes; and propagate the consequences of that choice throughout the project. The proposed approach relies on the partitioning of the work content domains into classes. Using these classes, we address different probabilities for each feasible allocation.
No abstract is provided for this article.
No abstract is provided for this article.
In the current business world setting, the strategi c directions are important not only for individual entities in the chain, but the complete chain itself should be cons idered for analysis. This helps developing competit ive advantages and retaining them. This article present s a methodology for analyzing a supply chain and de scribes how entities in the chain can be improved to materi alize the available and potential opportunities. Th e use of Planning-Link for mapping the cause and effect rela tionship between existing status of the chain to th e future or planned outputs is suggested here which makes the p rocess of strategic planning easier and logical.
In multi-project environments characterized by resource constraints and high uncertainty, traditional scheduling approaches often fail to respond effectively to dynamic project conditions. Fixed activity durations and rigid resource allocations limit adaptability, leading to inefficiencies and delays. To address this, the paper proposes a novel heuristic-based scheduling method that compresses and decompresses activity durations dynamically within the context of multi-project scheduling under uncertainty and resource flexibility—while preserving resource and precedence feasibility. The technique integrates Critical Path Method (CPM) calculations with heuristic rules to identify candidate activities whose durations can be reduced or extended based on slack availability and resource effort profiles. The objective is to enhance scheduling flexibility, improve resource utilization, and better align project execution with organizational priorities and sustainability goals. Validated through a case study at an automotive company in Portugal, the method demonstrates its practical effectiveness in recalibrating schedules and balancing resource loads. This contribution offers a timely and necessary innovation for companies aiming to enhance responsiveness and competitiveness in increasingly complex project landscapes. It provides an actionable framework for dynamic schedule adjustment in multi-project environments, helping companies to respond more effectively to uncertainty and resource fluctuations. Importantly, the proposed approach also supports sustainability objectives in new product development and supply chain operations. For practitioners, the method offers a responsive and sustainable planning tool that supports real-time adjustments in project portfolios, enhancing resource visibility and execution resilience. For researchers, the study contributes a reproducible, Python-based implementation grounded in Design Science Research (DSR), addressing gaps in stochastic multi-project scheduling and sustainability-aware planning.
This paper is concerned with an extension of the Resource-Constrained Project Scheduling Problem (RCPSP) which belongs to the class of the optimization scheduling problems with multi-level (or multi-mode) activities. We developed a practical tool, useful to represent multi-mode projects, and to find a solution for the problem on hand – select the best mode for each resource in each activity in order to minimize the total cost, considering the resource cost, a penalty for tardiness and a bonus for early completion. We implemented an adaptation of a filtered beam search (FBS) algorithm to this problem, using the C# programming language. A “filtered beam” search is a heuristic Branch and Bound (BaB) procedure that uses breadth first search but only the top “best” nodes are kept. We give some of the most important solution details and we report on further computational results, by testing the application for different problem sizes.
No abstract is provided for this article.
1 , 2 , 3 , 4 Abstract The competitiveness scenario in the textile and clothing is always changing with the entrance of new players and changes in the rules of trade. This can be observed by looking at the developments that took place around the world in the last decade. This study finds how things are changing in this chain and how players are positioning themselves in this new competitive scenario. One such player of the chain is focused for study and its strategic position was analyzed and directions for improving competitiveness were identified. The focus is taken to more depth by considering the tactical issues for the competitive options already identified.
Previous developments from the first author and other researchers were made on devising models for the total cost optimization of projects described by activity networks under stochastic conditions. Those models only covered the single resource case. The present paper will discuss the case of multiple resources. More precisely, we introduce a strategy of allocation of those resources in order to minimize the waste arising from their latent idleness on their consumption within the same activity. On this strategy we elect one resource as “pivot” and write equations that describe all the quantities for the other resources, on the same activity.
No abstract is provided for this article.
One of the engineering economics objectives is to do economic analysis of investment decisions. It has quite extensive applications since the investment may come from private companies or government entities. The analysis or evaluation of projects involves a set of techniques that establish feasibility parameters. These parameters are expressed by PBP (Payback Period number of years to recover the investment), IRR (internal rate of return) or NPV (Net Present Value). Thus, it has an important role on investment analysis or to buy a capital good, checking all technically feasible investment alternatives. This research is based on a case study, namely a project of extension of a micro enterprise, whose data was collected on Bank of Amazon. The Bank of Amazon is an agent for the application of policies and programs of the Federal Government in the Amazon region, as well as its feasibility and the potential to carry out the project. Based on these facts, it was studied the role of engineering economics in the evaluation of investment projects by the Bank of Amazon, located in the northern region of Brazil. It was concluded that the Bank relies on the economic feasibility and engineering economics to analyses the submitted projects, having as a reference a IRR parameter between 4% and 12% and a PBP of 4 to 12 years in the investment projects less or equal to R$ 400,000.00. Some opportunities and suggestions to extend and improve investment analysis procedures and tools are discussed at the end of this paper.
Fundos FEDER atraves do Programa Operacional Fatores de Competitividade – COMPETE e por Fundos Nacionais atraves da FCT –Fundacao para a Ciencia e Tecnologia, Projecto: FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-022674.
