Liu, J.; Chen, J.; Li, Y. and Zhao, K. (2026) Optimizing constrained construction crew-task assignment with grey wolf optimizer. Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, 152(8): 04026118, ISSN 0733-9364
Abstract
Crew-task assignment is a critical component of labor planning in construction engineering, directly impacting work continuity, project schedule, and cost control. In construction projects, ineffective crew-task assignment often leads to significant delays, particularly in large-scale projects with high resource-constrained settings. To tackle this issue, this paper proposes a model and modified grey wolf optimizer (GWO) for construction crew-task optimization. The key contributions include: (1) developing construction workforce plans based on skilled crew collaboration rather than merely on headcount; (2) the first application of GWO for construction crew-task assignment with multiskill consideration; (3) an enhanced local search mechanism combining forward and backward scheduling to improve crew-task assignment solution accuracy; and (4) a reformed GWO framework incorporating: (1) a hierarchical structure based on predetermined rank distribution; (2) a dynamic sorting mechanism with encoding adaptations to refine task sequencing and narrow the search space; (3) a distance-informed selection strategy to bolster global exploration, and (4) a hybrid genetic mutation operator to strengthen local exploitation. Evaluated on the intelligent multiobjective project scheduling environment benchmark, the proposed algorithm achieves new best-known solutions in several of the 36 test instances, while the computation time is significantly reduced. Moreover, it efficiently resolves the construction crew-task assignment problem, demonstrating good performance in solution quality and computational efficiency.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | constrained crew-task assignment; forward and backward search; grey wolf optimizer; multi-skill |
| Index terms: | cost control, exploration, accuracy, strategy, scheduling, efficiency, adaptation, computation, exploitation, construction project, project scheduling, collaboration, encoding, construction engineering |
| Subjects: | management, financial and cost management, operations research, environmental resource management, user focus, performance management, engineering methods, computational methods, professional development, project controls, data science, production management |
| Topics: | Business Strategy, Cost Management, Engineering Principles, Digital Applications, Quality Management, Organizational Design, Time Control, Project Management, Sustainability, Design Practice, Information Management |
| Descriptive scope: | 3 PCA |
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