This paper introduces a multi-project problem environment which involves
multiple projects with assigned due dates; with activities that have alternative
resource usage modes; a resource dedication policy that does not allow
sharing of resources among projects throughout the planning horizon; and a
total budget. There are three issues to face when investigating this multiproject environment. First, the total budget should be distributed among
different resource types to determine the general resource capacities which
correspond to the total amount for each renewable resource to be dedicated
to the projects. With the general resource capacities at hand, the next issue
is to determine the amounts of resources to be dedicated to the individual
projects. With the dedication of resources accomplished, the scheduling
of the projects' activities reduces to the multi-mode resource constrained
project scheduling problem (MRCPSP) for each individual project. Finally
the last issue is the effcient solution of the resulting MRCPSPs. In this paper,
this multi-project environment is modeled in an integrated fashion and designated as the Resource Portfolio Problem. A two-phase and a monolithic
genetic algorithm are proposed as two solution approaches each of which
employs a new improvement move designated as the combinatorial auction
for resource portfolio and the combinatorial auction for resource dedication.
Computational study using test problems demonstrated the effectiveness of
the solution approach proposed
