Dynamic Multi-skill Project Scheduling Under Disruptions with Earliness–Tardiness Objectives

Abstract

Existing studies on the Multi-Skill Resource-Constrained Project Scheduling Problem (MS-RCPSP) mostly assume static environments and focus solely on makespan minimization, which does not adequately reflect project scheduling under disruptions. In practice, disruptions may alter task durations during project execution, while completing projects either too early or too late relative to a deadline can incur substantial costs. To address this gap, this paper introduces the Dynamic Earliness–Tardiness Multi-Skill Resource-Constrained Project Scheduling Problem (DETMS-RCPSP), which jointly considers multi-skill resource allocation, taskduration disruptions, and earliness–tardiness optimization. We prove that DETMS-RCPSP is NP-hard and propose NGSA-DE, a self-adaptive differential evolution algorithm for reactive rescheduling. Experimental results on the iMOPSE benchmark show that NGSA-DE achieves better solution quality and stability than the baseline Differential Evolution and Particle Swarm Optimization algorithms across most tested instances. Unlike approaches that focus only on makespan, NGSA-DE also considers earliness and tardiness, which helps reduce the costs caused by projects finishing too early or too late when task durations are disrupted. The proposed approach can therefore improve reactive rescheduling and support workforce management decisions in dynamic project environments.

Received: 8 June 2026 | Revised: 20 July 2026 | Accepted: 21 August 2026

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest to this work.

Data Availability Statement

The data that support the findings of this study are openly available in iMOPSE at https://github.com/imopse/iMOPSE/tree/main/configurations/problems/MSRCPSP/d36.

Author Contribution Statement

Hao Nguyen Thi: Conceptualization, Methodology, Software, Validation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing. Loc Nguyen The: Conceptualization, Methodology, Investigation, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing. Huu Dang Quoc: Conceptualization, Software, Validation, Formal analysis, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing.