Multi skilled and resource constrained project planning and material ordering: A decision support model

Project planning is a critical topic for companies who work on a project basis. It is a tool for the companies to reach their mission and vision. When project plans are created based on real characteristics and capabilities of the company, they result in efficiency and success. However, if project plans are not applicable to real life scenarios, it may lead to an increase in unplanned expenses and loss of time within the company. These losses damage the company's reputation and reduce customer satisfaction, putting future sales at risk. For this reason, it is of great importance for businesses that the project plan is realistic and applicable. Making project planning realistic is a process that starts with the decision maker's recognition of resources and project requirements. The decision maker's mastery of the potential of the firm and its resources provides great flexibility to the decision maker during planning. In most of the studies in the literature, resources of a company is considered as the workforce of the company. There are different approaches for assigning company resources to projects. In this study, a project plan will be formed for a company whose resources are assumed to have more than one talent (multi skilled). The first stage of the project planning is evaluated as the assignment of the workforce to the tasks, and the second stage as forming a material ordering calender. In developed model, the goal is to minimize the total costs of the project. The features that distinguish this study from other studies are; the tasks can be carried out simultaneously and an optimal expenditure schedule is created. With the model developed as a result of numerical analysis, it was observed that the labor force assignments could be made optimally, an optimal expenditure schedule could be prepared, and the cost could be minimized in the meantime.