A BRANCH-AND-BOUND ALGORITHM FOR SCHEDULING PROJECTS TO MAXIMIZE NET PRESENT VALUE - THE CASE OF TIME-DEPENDENT, CONTINGENT CASH FLOWS

The problem of scheduling activities in a project to maximize its net present value (NPV) has been solved recently for the case where net ca sh flow magnitudes are dependent on the time of realization. In this p roblem, incentive payments and penalties for early and late event occu rrences respectively, as well as the cost of resources over time, are time dependent. We present a branch and bound solution approach for th is problem. We compare the NPVs of the solutions obtained from the bra nch and bound algorithm with those of a simulated annealing approach d eveloped earlier. Our computational results show that the branch and b ound approach outperforms the best known simulated annealing implement ation.