Problem definitions and basic notation

Abstract

In this chapter, we approach our three problems, which are the selection of projects, the assignment of workers to projects, and the distribution of departmental workload. These problems are faced by an organization, e.g., a firm. The organization with its workforce and the projects that the organization can select define the setting of the three problems. Hence, we will first elaborate on the characteristics of the organization and the projects in Section 3.1 to describe the setting or the environment in which our problems are situated. For the characteristics we will introduce identifiers, which will be used through the remainder of this thesis. After having shed light on the setting, we will define the three problems, namely, the project selection problem in Section 3.2, the workforce assignment problem in Section 3.3, and the utilization leveling problem in Section 3.4.