New Heuristic Method of Section Network Compression Process for Large-Scale Networks

The discrete time-cost trade-off (DTCT) problem has been solved or nearly solved using exact, heuristic, or meta-heuristic methods. However, the existing current methods have a certain level of limitations in optimizing the DTCT problem in terms of either computational time or accuracy as efficiently as is beneficial for large project networks in the construction industry. For this reason, further research into new methods for solving DTCT problems and improvements to the methods in practical use is required. The study in this paper presents a new heuristic method of sectional network compression to solve DTCT problems in practical computational time while promising the accuracy of time-cost trade-off results. The case study demonstrated that the section network compression process controlled the time-cost trade-off operation at the acceptable level of cost and duration accuracy. The section network compression process is the novelty introduced to the heuristic method to advance its time-cost trade-off operation performance.