A general variable neighborhood search based on path relinking algorithm for multi-skill resource-constrained project scheduling problem with multiple restrictions

This paper proposes a general variable neighborhood search based path relinking algorithm (GVNS-PR) to solving the multi-skill resources-constrained project scheduling problem with multiple restrictions. Integrating a local refinement procedure and a path relinking framework, the proposed GVNS-PR is assessed on two datasets and achieves highly competitive results. One set of benchmark instances which are known in the literature can be used to demonstrate the capability of the proposed algorithm to seek for the high quality schedules, in comparison with the existed state-of-the-art algorithms. The other one revises the previous through adding the researched restrictions into instances information. Two critical components of the proposed algorithm are shed light on to confirm their key role to the successful method.