Learning curve based integrated procurement and project scheduling of multiple sister ships project

Abstract

Studies reported in extant literature confirm the importance of the considering learning curve effect in a project context. However, a study that incorporates the learning curve effect in an integrated procurement and project schedule has not been yet reported in the literature. The primary contribution of the present study is to address this research gap. It develops a learning curve based integrated procurement and project scheduling Mixed Integer Programming (MIP) model for a shipbuilding project involved in manufacturing of multiple sister ships. The present study makes its second contribution in the MIP model. It provides an innovative way to model decision variables corresponding to order quantity by defining order batching scenarios. This approach reduces the size of search space, thereby reducing the computational complexity of solution approach. Its third contribution is conceptualization of two new parameters, schedule compression percentage and batching degree, to analyze the effect of the learning curve on project schedule and the tradeoff between transportation cost and inventory holding cost.