The rolling wave scheduling problem solved by the real options approach

This paper presents a methodology for the rolling wave scheduling. The methodology aims to manage the cost and risk of delay of the project by identifying the best schedule using the available information. The literature shows the absence of specific quantitative algorithms for the rolling wave schedule since most of the approaches are merely qualitative. Therefore it is necessary to define and test a new methodology to evaluate the overall alternatives. This new approach first lists all the possible schedules than evaluate each schedule with a real option based optimization model. The methodology described has been implemented in Matlab, in order to perform the related sensitivity analysis. The results show how this approach is able to reduce both the expected cost and the variance respect to a not real option approach.