IT Project Portfolio Scheduling and Multi-skilled Staff Assignment with Ant Colony Optimization Algorithm

Human resource is a key factor for IT new product development. Considering multi-skilled employees in IT Project Portfolio Scheduling, a mixed integer nonlinear programming model with three optimization objectives is proposed from the view of project or product managers. The three objectives are to maximize the increments of skill efficiency values for all multi-skilled employees, to minimize R&D cycle and to minimize R&D costs for the IT product respectively. We develop an improved ant colony optimization algorithm combining with the advantages of genetic algorithm to acquire the Pareto solution set of the multi-objective optimization problem and get the optimal solution by a weighted ideal point method. Finally, empirical analysis is done through a new IT product portfolio scheduling and staff assignment problem of the distribution network automation monitoring terminal from an electrical device company. The empirical results show our model accords with the business’s practice and the proposed algorithm is effective.