LINGO optimization modelling of construction scheduling

Scheduling techniques (e.g. CPM and LOB) help decision making objectively; however, they produce good rather than optimal solutions. Moreover, CPM and LOB assume deterministic rather than stochastic values of construction activities' duration and cost. Mathematical programming was early used to optimally solve construction problems; however, modelling of real-life projects is tedious, time-consuming, and prone to errors. LINGO system can handle stochastic behaviour of project parameters and express large-size optimization problems concisely and solve them optimally. In this paper, LINGO's modelling language is used to automatically formulate core mathematical models of real-life construction problems. The scheduling algorithms of CPM and LOB are transformed into the corresponding core optimization models. LINGO modelling language is illustrated by an example project and three case studies are used to prove their power features. The primary contributions of the present work are (1) an easy and simple modelling language is used to formulate optimization models of scheduling techniques, (2) models of large-size projects can be formulated with few LINGO statements, and (3) LINGO optimization modelling opens the door to analyse scholastic behaviour of construction parameters. LINGO language can be easily used to formulate the mathematical moles of complex optimization problems and then solve them optimally.