Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2014) 71:117–126
DOI 10.1007/s00170-013-5463-2
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
A hybrid model of fuzzy goal programming and grey numbers
in continuous project time, cost, and quality tradeoff
Seyed Hossein Razavi Hajiagha &
Hannan Amoozad Mahdiraji & Shide Sadat Hashemi
Received: 22 February 2012 / Accepted: 25 October 2013 / Published online: 20 November 2013
# Springer-Verlag London 2013
Abstract The purpose of this paper is to develop current
mathematical models of cost, time, and quality tradeoffs in
conditions that parameters of project activities are estimated
uncertainly by grey numbers. In some projects like construc-
tion projects, activities can be done within a much shorter time
by increasing in the resources, while project's cost may rise at
the same time. In such situations, managers are usually re-
quired to determine the best combination of cost, time, and
quality parameters of the activities, although their information
regarding these parameters is limited and rather incomplete.
The greyness of these parameters in the proposed method can
aid managers to deal with these conditions. The most impor-
tant aspect of the proposed model is that it considers uncer-
tainty of the project planning data in the form of grey numbers.
A combination of fuzzy goal programming and grey linear
programming is also developed to solve the proposed model.
Finally, this model will provide the managers with a stronger
ability to face with uncertainty in project management and
planning. The application of this model is examined in a
numerical example. As its major finding, the model deter-
mines an optimal range in which the project managers can
respond to intrinsic changes that may occur in the parameters
during a project.
S. H. Razavi Hajiagha (*)
Productivity and Systematic Research and Studies Group,
Institute for Trade Studies and Research, Tehran, Iran
e-mail: s.hossein.r@gmail.com
H. A. Mahdiraji
Kashan Branch, Islamic Azad University, Kashan, Iran
S. S. Hashemi
Management and Accounting Faculty,
Allameh Tabatabaei University, Tehran, Iran
Keywords Project management . Time, cost, and quality
tradeoff . The iron triangle . Fuzzy goal programming .
Grey numbers
1 Introduction
Project management is one of the most important fields in
business and industry. Every task in an organization can be
taken into account as a project, i.e., a temporary endeavor
undertaken to produce a unique product, service, or result
[33]. In this context, the purpose of project management is to
foresee as many of the dangers and problems as possible and to
plan, organize, and control activities so that the projects will be
completed successfully despite all the exposed risks [39]. Ac-
cording to PMBOK Guide, the nine knowledge areas in a
typical project management case are project integration, time,
cost, quality, human resource, communication, and risk and
procurement management [46]. There are three main points
that are the most important factors for a successful project: (1) a
project must meet the customer requirements, (2) it has to be
within budget, and (3) it has to be on time [47]. These three
criteria often are referred to as The Iron Triangle [6].
One important aspect of the project management is to acquire
the information related to an optimum balance between the pro-
ject's objectives. According to the iron triangle, time, cost and
quality are important objectives of a project. Heretofore, extensive
researches have been conducted to develop cost–time tradeoff
problems. Nowadays, the quality of a project is also added to the
project time and cost. The aim of these problems (TCQTP) is to
select a set of activities for crashing as well as an appropriate
execution method for each activity such that the project's cost and
time is minimize, while the project quality is maximized [50].
The problem of project's time–cost tradeoff was first intro-
duced by Kelly [31]. By assuming that direct cost of an
118
activity changes with time, mathematical programming
models were developed to minimize the project's direct cost
[7]. Thereafter, many researchers have developed mathemat-
ical programming model for these problems.
How to balance time, cost, and quality is crucial to any
project manager. Tradeoff optimization is also significant for
improvement of overall benefits of the projects. This paper
presents a multiple objective mathematical programming
model that allows quality to be explicitly considered in plan-
ning and scheduling of a project while addressing the tradeoffs
between quality, time, and cost. Completion of any tradeoff
problem in project management is dividable into three stages.
At first, time–cost tradeoff problems were considered by the
researchers. At this stage, finding optimal processes in project
networks through balancing time and cost was analyzed by
[15]. Simense [51], Goyal [21], Harvey and Patterson [24],
Prabudha et al. [45], Phillips [43], Demeulemeester et al. [16],
and Akkan [3] present heuristic models for discrete time–cost
tradeoff problems. By improvements in the mathematical
programming, Deckro et al. [14] developed a nonlinear
model. Metaheuristic methods also made a new generation of
models in the project management [20, 25, 34, 61].
At the second stage, quality was addressed by some re-
searchers, but some others presented models for measuring the
quality costs in the project management [5, 30, 40]. Thus,
time–cost–quality tradeoff models are considered as the third
stage of classification. At this stage, some studies were con-
ducted to incorporate the quality as a new factor in the time–
cost tradeoff problems like those of Babu and Suresh [7],
Tareghian and Taheri [52], and Pollack-Johnson and
Liberatore [44]. Other studies were just focused on optimizing
this tradeoff mostly in construction projects [19, 55]. At this
stage, meta heuristic methods were still regarded as an appro-
priate tool for solving these kinds of problems for example in
some works of Afshar et al. [2], Huang et al. [27], Yang [56],
Tareghian and Taheri [53], Liberatore and Johnson [35], and
Lakshminayaranan et al. [32].
One of the most important issues in modeling this kind of
problems is data uncertainty. This uncertainty is caused as the
available information is often approximate or partial [58]. The
project managers require approximating the values of time,
cost, and quality of the activities, and all these approximations
deal with uncertainty. Many of the models, however, applied
the crisp data as approximations of the parameters. These
models neglect the inexact nature of such approximation.
Some researchers including Cohen et al. [13], Abbasnia
et al. [1], and Zhang and Xing [60] considered the uncertainty
problem of CTQT based on stochastic or fuzzy data. Mean-
while, Mokhtari et al. [41] developed a hybrid approach for
the stochastic time–cost trade-off problem in PERT networks.
Amiri and Golozari [4] applied fuzzy multi-attribute decision
making techniques in project planning. Salmasnia et al. [49]
regarded quality as an additional aspect in the traditional time–
Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2014) 71:117–126
cost tradeoff problem while the parameters are considered as
stochastic.
The main contribution of this work is to investigate the
uncertainty concept in TCQTP based on a combination of
fuzzy sets and grey numbers. The advantages of grey numbers
in the uncertain decision making with no need to any
predefined membership or probability function made it an
appropriate framework to approximate the parameters of time,
cost, and quality. This study, proposes a method which uses a
fuzzy grey goal programming (FGGP) approach for modeling
the multiobjective TCQTP. In this FGGP model, the goal
values are defined as fuzzy numbers, whereas the parameters
are determined by grey numbers.
The rest of this paper is organized as follows: Sec-
tion 2 is an overview on the fuzzy goal programming
(FGP) and Section 3 briefly introduces the grey numbers as
well as the grey linear programming. The contents of these
two sections are used then to solve the proposed TCQTP
model. Section 4 introduces the suggested model develop-
ment. An application of the proposed model will be also
illustrated via a numerical example in Section 5. Finally,
Section 6 makes some conclusions in addition to some sug-
gestions for the future work.
2 Fuzzy goal programming
Multiobjective programming includes a set of approaches
which are utilized in decision-making problems with several
objectives. Goal programming (GP) is an approach to solve
multiobjective problems and was first introduced by Charnes
et al. [10, 29]. As currently available information is rather
partial or approximate, determination of the goal value might
be difficult for each objective in GP. Zeleny [59], Can and
Houck [9], Bouyssou [8], and Inuiguchi and Kume [28] are
the main contributions which have incorporated the uncertain-
ty into the GP.
Narasimhan [42] proposed an initial FGP, while Hannan
[22, 23] andYang et al. [57] performed some studies in FGP,
and Yang et al. [57] formulated the FGP problem as follows:
Max β
S:T:
Gk ðxÞ−bk
β ≤ 1−
d k2 ð1Þ
bk −Gk ðxÞ
β ≤ 1−
d k1
β; X ≥ 0; for all k
Where b k represents the aspiration level of the kth goal,
and d k1 and d k2 are the maximum allowable negative and
positive deviations from b k , respectively.
Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2014) 71:117–126 119

Tiwari et al. [54] have presented a simple additive model to that some constraints like μ k ≥μ ∗k are added to the system of
formulate an FGP problem. They used Zimmermann [62, 63] constraints. Finally, the FGP problem with K different goals is
linear membership function and formulated a simple additive transformed into such a following problem:
model. Let G i (X) be the ith fuzzy goal and g i be its aspiration
X
n
level. Then, if optimization direction be on maximizing f ðμÞ ¼ wk μk ð6Þ
G i (X ), then its membership function μ i is defined as: k¼1

8 S:T:
> 1 if Gi ðX Þ ≥ g i
< G ðX Þ−L ðaÞSystem constraints
i i
μi ¼ if Li ≤ Gi ðX Þ≤ g i ð2Þ
>
: g i −Li ðbÞ μk ≥ μl ; ∀ðk; l Þ∈f1; 2; …; K g
0 if Gi ðX Þ ≤ Li ðcÞμk ≥ μ*k ; ∀k∈f1; 2; …; K g

And if decision maker desires to minimize G i (X ), its
membership function can be written as below:
8 Tsai [11] is used to transform the Fuzzy Gray Goal Program-
> 1 if Gi ðxÞ ≤g i
< U −G ðX Þ
i i
μi ¼ if g i ≤ Gi ðX Þ≤ U i
>
: Li −g i
0 if Gi ðX Þ≥ U i
Where, L i and U i are defined as lower and upper allowed
tolerance for G i (X ), respectively.
Chen and Tsai [11] compared the results obtained from the
models of Tiwari et al. [54] and Yang et al. [57] within a
numerical example and showed that the sum of achievement
degrees of Tiwari et al. [54] method is greater than Yang
et al.'s [57].
To take into account relative importance of the goals,
Tiwari et al.[54] have proposed a weighted additive model
enters each goal's weight into the objective function. There-
fore, the objective function would be modeled as below:
Xn
f ðμÞ ¼ wk μk
k¼1
Where w k denotes the weight of the k th fuzzy goal,
n
∑ wk ¼ 1 and μ k represents the degree of objective
k¼1
achievement k which is defined as a linear membership func-
tion. Chen and Tsai [11] have shown that this model may
produce undesirable solutions when the weights are changed.
Conversely, Chen and Tsai [11] proposed a preemptive model
to explicitly determine a desirable degree of objective achieve-
ment for each fuzzy goal as the importance of the fuzzy goal.
In this model, the more important the goals, the higher the
desirable achievement degrees. Thereby, the objective func-
tion of the FGP problem is like Eq. (4), and a set of preemptive
preferences over goals are added to the model:
Where, (b) and (c) are determined by the decision maker
when he/she prefers. Here in this study, the model of Chen and
ming into a Linear Grey Programming.
ð3Þ
3 Grey Theory and grey linear programming
Liu and Lin [37] introduced grey system as one of the prom-
inent frameworks in dealing with the uncertainty issues. Grey
systems developed by Deng [17] and Deng [18] present grey
decision-making systems. Many other researchers applied this
concept in their decision-making problems. There are several
types of grey numbers which are reviewed by Liu and Lin
[38]. Interval grey numbers are a common form of the grey
numbers. The exact values of these numbers are unknown, but
they usually lie within a known range [36, 38]. Hereafter, such
numbers are called grey numbers for simplicity. Symbol “⊗”
is generally used to demonstrate the grey numbers. A grey
number is written as ⊗ðaÞ∈½a; aŠ , where a stands for the
ð4Þ definite known lower bound and a stands for the definite
known upper bound [35]. Arithmetic operations of the grey
numbers are also shown by Liu and Lin [37]. Roughly speak-
ing, if ⊗ 1 and ⊗ 2 are two grey numbers and ∗∈{+,−,×,÷} is
an operator, then ⊗=⊗ 1 ∗⊗ 2 will itself be a grey number.
In this paper, the grey linear programming is used as a
decision tool for TCQTP problem with the grey information.
Huang [26], Chen et al. [12], and Razavi Hajiagha et al. [48]
proposed some methods to solve the grey linear programming
problems. In this paper, the method presented by Huang [26]
is used, involving three rules. First, for the grey number
⊗(x)∈[a,b] it can be said that:
⊗ðxÞ≥ 0 if a ≥0 and b≥ 0
ð7Þ
⊗ðxÞ≤ 0 if a ≤0 and b≤ 0

μk ≥ μl ð5Þ In addition,

When, the kth goal is proffered to the lth one. In addition, Signð⊗ðaÞÞ ¼ 1; if ⊗ðaÞ≥ 0
ð8Þ
decision maker may choose a set of satisfaction degree μ ∗k , so −1; if ⊗ðaÞ≺0
120 Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2014) 71:117–126

For the grey number ⊗(a), its absolute value is defined as properties of ⊗ b i is incorporated into left hand side as
below based on [26]: follows:
h i    
⊗ðjajÞ∈ ⊗ðjajÞ; ⊗ − ð a Þ ¼ ⊗; if ⊗ ≥ 0 X
k1
 
X
n
 

j j ⊗ aij   Sign aij x j =bi þ ⊗ aij   Sign aij x j =bi ≤ 1; ∀i
ð9Þ
−⊗; if ⊗≺0 j¼1 j¼k 1 þ1

ð15Þ
Grey linear programming (GLP) is a generalized form of
X
k1
 
  X
n
 
 
ordinal linear programming in which its parameters, including ⊗ aij   Sign aij x j =bi þ ⊗ aij   Sign aij x j =bi ≤ 1; ∀i
coefficients and technological matrix of the objective function, j¼1 j¼k 1 þ1

are expressed as the grey numbers, i.e., if ⊗B ∈⊗(R)m ×1, ⊗ ð16Þ

C ∈⊗(R )1×n , and ⊗X ∈⊗(R )n ×1, a GLP problem can be
represented as follows: The GLP problem (10) is solved in the following two steps.
MaxðminÞ ⊗ f ¼ ⊗C:⊗X Firstly, a whitened sub model corresponding to f (with
S:T: ⊗A:⊗X ≤ ð ≥ Þ⊗B ð10Þ maximization objective) is solved which is composed of
⊗X ≥ 0 Eq. (11) as the objective function and Eq. (15) as the con-
straints. Then, the relevant sub model corresponding to f is
According to Huang [26], as the objective function is a formulated. First model determines the values of x j ; j ¼ 1; 2;
grey variable, the goal here is to find its optimal value …; k 1 and x j ; j ¼ k 1 þ 1; k 1 þ 2; …; n , whereas the second
h i
⊗ f ∈ f ; f . Upper and lower bounds of ⊗f are also given model generates the values of x j ; j ¼ 1; 2; …; k 1 and x j ; j ¼
k 1 þ 1; k 1 þ 2; …; n . Then, two sets of additional constraints
below:
are added to the second stage model:
X
k1 X
n
f ¼ cj  xj þ cj  xj ð11Þ x j ≤ x *j ; j ¼ 1; 2; …; k 1 ð17Þ
j¼1 j¼k 1 þ1

X
k1 X
n
f ¼ cj  xj þ cj  xj ð12Þ x j ≥ x *j ; j ¼ k 1 þ 1; k 1 þ 2; …; n ð18Þ
j¼1 j¼k 1 þ1

h i
Where, ⊗ c j ∈ c j ; c j ; j ¼ 1; 2; …; k 1 and ⊗(c j ), j =
4 Model development
k 1 +1,k 1 +2,…,n are found as positive and negative coeffi-
cients of the objective function, respectively using Eq. (7). A project is represented by a directed acyclic graph G =(V,E)
Constraints correspond to f can be developed as: consisting of m nodes and n arcs, in which V ={1,2,…,m} is the
set of nodes and E ={(i,j),…,(l,m)} is the set of direct arcs.
X
k1
 
 
⊗ aij   Sign aij x j These arcs and nodes represent activities and events, respectively.
j¼1 Each project activity, saying (i,j)∈E, has two final forms: (1)
  normal form with time D ij , cost C ij and quality Q ij , and (2)
X
n
 

þ ⊗ aij   Sign aij x j ≤ ⊗ðbi Þ; ∀i ð13Þ crashed form with time d ij , cost c ij , and quality q ij . Now this
j¼k 1 þ1 problem involves finding the best combination of time, cost and
quality of the activities, so that goals of the project manager about
While, for f the relevant constraints are: the required time, cost and quality of project will be satisfied.
Notations used for formulation of the problem are as follows:
X
k1
 
 
⊗ aij   Sign aij x j
Parameters:
j¼1 n Number of activities
X
n
 
  ⊗d ij Crashed duration of activity ij
þ ⊗ aij  :Sign aij x j ≤ ⊗ðbi Þ; ∀i ð14Þ ⊗Q ij Quality of activity ij in normal duration
j¼k 1 þ1 ⊗q ij Quality of activity ij in crashed duration
⊗D ij Normal duration of activity ij
About right hand side (RHS) numbers, when they ⊗C ij Direct cost of activity ij in normal duration
are a grey number and do not contain a zero, the grey ⊗c ij Direct cost of activity ij in crashed duration
Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2014) 71:117–126
Variables:
⊗X ij Actual time of activity ij
⊗t ij Start time of activity ij
Two additional parameters are defined as follows:
– Cost slope of activity ij: Cost of decreasing one unit from
⊗c −⊗C
normal time of activity ij: ⊗csij ¼ ⊗dijij −⊗Dijij
– Quality slope of activity ij: Lost (or gained) quality of
decreasing one unit from normal time of activity ij :
⊗q −⊗Q
⊗qsij ¼ ⊗dijij −⊗Dijij
4.1 Objective functions
This study has adopted the multiobjective programming
technique for solving the TCQTP. Practical decisions
involved in TCQTP must consider time, cost and qual-
ity of the project. There are two assumptions in devel-
opment of the proposed model: (1) time of the project
activities is a continuous positive variable between their
normal and crashed time, and (2) the relationship be-
tween time, cost, and quality is linear.
Three objective functions are simultaneously considered in
development of the proposed model as follows.
– Minimization of total project cost: If two points
(⊗D ij ,⊗C ij ) and (⊗d ij ,⊗c ij ) show the normal and crashed
statues of each activity ij in two dimensional space of time–
cost, then the cost model of activity ij will be as Eq. (19):

4.3.1 Development of membership functions
⊗C ij þ ⊗csij ⊗xij −⊗Dij ð19Þ
Thus, the total project cost as summation of costs of all
activities can be expressed as follows:
X X

min Z 1 ≅ ij∈E ⊗C ij þ ⊗csij ⊗xij −⊗Dij ð20Þ
– Minimization of required time of the project: Another
objective is to accomplish the project in a predetermined
time. If T n is the time of last node in the project and T 1 is
the time of its first node, then the time of this project can
be determined as follows:
min Z 2 ≅⊗T n −⊗T 1 ð21Þ
– Maximization of quality of the project: As expressed
about total cost of the project, its quality can be formu-
lated as same way:
X Xh
i
max Z 3 ≅ ij∈E
⊗Qij þ ⊗qs ij ⊗x ij −⊗D ij ð22Þ
121
Equations (19) and (22) are just the suggested formulas for
relationship between time and cost/quality of the project, and
every form of the linear functions can be analyzed by same
way.
4.2 Constraints
– Constraints on start and finish time of an activity: Sup-
pose that activity ij starts at time ⊗t i with its duration
being ⊗x ij . Then, if finish time of the activity is ⊗t j , then
the following relationship is valid for this activity:
⊗t i þ ⊗xij ≤ ⊗t j ∀ij∈E; i; j ¼ 1; 2; …; n ð23Þ
– Constraints on actual duration of an activity: If ⊗x ij is the
actual time of activity ij, then it must satisfy the following
conditions:
⊗xij ≤ ⊗Dij ; ∀ij∈E ð24Þ
⊗xij ≥ ⊗d ij ; ∀ij∈E ð25Þ
4.3 The FGGP model for TCQT problems
The original grey multiobjective linear programming
(GMOLP) model for TCQT problem (GMOLP-TCQT) can
be converted to a FGGP for the TCQT problem (FGGP-
TCQT) by introducing membership functions to represent
fuzzy goals of decision makers. In this section, the member-
ship functions will be introduced.
There are numerous examples in the literature in which the
deterministic model is solved first and then the obtained
solution values for each goal are used as a benchmark for
the development of the membership function. Moreover, some
researchers have proposed use of decision makers' judgment.
However, the first approach is used in this paper. Three
minimizing models are solved to obtain the membership
function by the ordinal linear programming method as
follows:
min Z 1 ðZ 2 or maxZ 3 Þ
Subject to :
ð26Þ
Constraints ð23Þ−ð25Þ
Nonnegative constraints
Every objective has an optimal grey value which is derived
from the method of Huang [26]. Suppose that ⊗Z ∗1 is the
optimal grey value of the first objective which is obtained by
minimizing the lower bound function (Eqs. 12 and 16) and
minimizing the upper bound function (Eqs. 11 and 15). This
122 Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2014) 71:117–126

solution gives an idea for development of the membership

function according to Eq. 3 as follows:
8
>
> 1 if Z 1 ≤ Z 1*
>
>
<Z −*
1 −Z 1 −
μ1 ¼ if Z 1* ≤ Z 1 ≤ 1Z 1* ð27Þ
>
> −
> Z 1 −Z 1
* *
>
: −
0 if Z 1 ≥ Z 1*

The membership function for the second objective is ob-

tained in a similar way. Figure 1 depicts the membership
function of the first and second objectives based on Eq. 27.
As the third objective is of maximization type, having Fig. 2 Membership function of third objective
maximized it first by determining the upper bound value
(Eqs. 11 and 15) and its lower bound value (Eqs. 12 and is solved based on Eqs. 11 and 15. Then the lower bound
∗ ∗

16), the optimal grey values Z 3 ; Z 3 will be found. Then problem including Eqs. 12 and 16 is solved. The solutions of
its membership function will have such a form: these two problems will determine the grey solution of the
8 TCQT problem. Figure 3 shows the block diagram for devel-
>
> Z 3 ≤ Z 3*
>0
>
if opment of a typical GMOLP-TCQT model.
< Z −Z *
if Z 3* ≤ Z 3 ≤ Z−3*
3 Note that when the Huang's [26] approach is used to solve
μ3 ¼ 3
ð28Þ
>
> −* * the GLP model in step 4, some justifications are also made. In
>
> Z 3 −Z 3
: this context, first the lower bound model is solved to give the
1 if Z ≥ Z−*
3 3 lower bound values of the decision variables. In this phase, the
Figure 2 illustrates the membership function of the third linear programming model is constituted as follows:
objective. 3
X
The decision maker might have some kind of preemptive max μi ð30Þ
structure on importance of the objectives. Based on Chen and i¼1
−
Tsai [11], the following GLP model can be solved to yield the Z i* −Z i
μi ≤ ; i ¼ 1; 2
best combination of achievements. − *
Z i* −Z i
3
X −
max μi ð29Þ Z 3 −Z 3*
μ3 ≤
−
i¼1 Z 3* −Z 3*
−
Z i* −Z i
μi ≤ ; i ¼ 1; 2 ⊗xij ≤ ⊗Dij ; ∀ij∈E
−
Z i* −Z i* ⊗xij ≥ ⊗d ij ; ∀ij∈E
Z 3 −Z 3*
μ3 ≤
− System constraint ð23Þ
Z 3* −Z 3*
μ1 ; μ2 ; μ3 ; ⊗xij ; ⊗t i ≥ 0
System constraints ð23Þ−ð25Þ
μ1 ; μ2 ; μ3 ; ⊗xij ; ⊗t i ≥ 0 Start

Formulate the GMOLP-TCQT

The above GLP can be solved by the approach of Huang [Eqs. (19) - (25)]
[26] in two phases. In the first phase, the upper bound problem
Construct the membership
functions of objectives
[Eqs. (27) – (28)]

Transform to equivalent
FGGP-TCQT model

Transform to equivalent GLP

model [Eq. (29)]

Solve GLP model [Eq. (29)]

No Ye
Modify the model’s membership
Is the solution satisfactory? Stop
functions

Fig. 1 Membership function of first (second) objectives Fig. 3 The block diagram of GMOLP-TCQT model development
Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2014) 71:117–126 123

Table 1 Project data to CTQTP

Activity Preceding Normal mode Crashed mode Cost Quality

slop slop
Time (day) Cost (/) Quality (%) Time (day) Cost (/) Quality (%)

A – [3, 5] [100, 115] [75, 80] [1.5, 2.5] [150, 200] [60, 70] [−200, −10] [−20, −1.75]
B A [3, 4] [45, 60] [75, 85] [1, 2.5] [90, 110] [50, 70] [−130, −10] [−13, −0.86]
C A [5, 7] [100, 120] [85, 90] [3, 4] [175, 210] [70, 80] [−110, −13.75] [−22, −2.75]
D B [6, 9] [150, 200] [65, 70] [2, 5] [200, 250] [75, 85] [−100, 0] [0, 20]
E B–C [4, 6] [100, 110] [60, 70] [2, 3] [120, 150] [75, 80] [−50, −2.5] [0.5, 10]
F B [6, 8] [125, 155] [75, 80] [3, 5] [185, 215] [85, 90] [−90, −6] [2, 18]
G E–F [6, 8] [120, 145] [85, 90] [3, 4] [200, 230] [75, 80] [−55, −11] [−22, −3.67]
H E–F [3, 4] [50, 75] [85, 90] [1, 2] [100, 135] [75, 80] [−85, −8.33] [−17, −1.67]
I D–I [4, 6] [100, 150] [60, 70] [1, 3] [150, 175] [75, 85] [−75, 0] [0, 15]
J H–I [9, 11] [195, 235] [90, 95] [5, 8] [265, 300] [75, 85] [−105, −5] [−21, −1.5]

Having solved the above model, the upper bound model in membership functions are constituted as follows:
phase 2 will be constituted via replacing the lower bound 8
> 1 if Z 1 ≤ 1; 085
variables in model (30) by the upper bound variables and < 1; 365−Z
1
adding some constraints that require the upper bound values μ1 ¼ if 1; 085 ≤ Z 1 ≤ 1; 365 ð31Þ
>
: 1; 365−1; 085
to be greater than or equal to those lower bound values. 0 if Z 1 ≥ 1; 365
8
>
<1 if Z 2 ≤ 15:5
5 Numerical example 25−Z 2
μ2 ¼ if 15:5 ≤ Z 2 ≤ 25 ð32Þ
>
: 25−15:5
0 if Z 2 ≥ 25
An application of the proposed model is shown in this section.
Let a project be consisting of ten activities the information of 8
which are listed in Table 1. As can be seen in Table 1, each >
<0 if Z 3 ≤ 546
Z 3 −546
activity has two modes, namely normal and crashed modes. μ3 ¼ if 546 ≤Z 2 ≤ 843 ð33Þ
The management team approximates the time, cost, and qual- >
: 843−546
1 if Z 2 ≥ 843
ity of each activity in every mode as the grey numbers.
The network of this project is shown in Fig. 4.
Note that the activity (3, 4) is a virtual activity and its time
is equal to 0. According to the proposed method, the GMOLP- For example, Eq. (32) implies that if the project completion
TCQT problem is solved in the following steps: date is shorter than 15.5 days, its utility is 100 % for the project
manager and if it takes time more than 25 days, its
Step 1. Formulating the GMOLP-TCTQT problem based on utility to the project manager is zero. Between these
Eqs. (19) to (23). two values, the project completion date demonstrates a
Step 2. Developing the membership function of objectives. utility according to Eq. (32).
As expressed earlier in Section 4.3.1, the member-
ship functions for these objectives are obtained by Step 3. Transformation to an equivalent FGGP-TCQT mod-
solving three distinct optimization problems for each el. By considering the lower and upper bound values
of the objective (Eq. 26). The results of these opti- of the objectives, the grey multiobjective model can
mization problems are Z ∗1 ∈(1,085,1,365), Z ∗1 ∈(15.5, be transformed to a FGGP model.
25) and Z ∗1 ∈(546,843). Based on these solutions, the Step 4. Transformation to an equivalent GLP model. The
D I J
equivalent GLP model for FGGP-TCQT model is
B 3 6 7 8 constructed as follows. Based on the approach put
A F
G H
forward by Chen and Tsai [9], the project manager
1 2
E can take some preferences among the objectives.
C
4 5 Suppose that there are no preferences between cost
Virtual activity and quality, but both of these objectives are pre-
Fig. 4 Project's network diagram ferred to the time objective. These considerations
124 Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2014) 71:117–126

are properly shown in constraints μ 1 ≥ μ 2 and Table 3 Decision vari-

ables optimal grey Variable Grey value
μ 3 ≥μ 2. Then, the final model would have such a
solution
form: ⊗x 12 [1.5, 2.5]
X3
⊗x 23 [3, 3]
minf ðμÞ ¼ ⊗μk ð34Þ
⊗x 24 [5, 5]
k¼1
⊗x 36 [6, 8.5]
Subject to : ⊗x 45 [2, 3]
X X
 
μ1 ≤ 4:875−0:00357143 ij∈E
⊗C ij þ ⊗csij ⊗xij −⊗Dij ⊗x 35 [4, 5]
⊗x 56 [5.5, 5.5]
μ2 ≤ 5:56−0:22222222 ð⊗T 8 −⊗T 1 Þ
X X h
i  ⊗x 57 [3, 4]
μ3 ≤0:00336700 ij∈E
⊗Qij þ ⊗qsij ⊗xij −⊗Dij −1:839 ⊗x 67 [1, 3]
⊗t i þ ⊗xij ≤⊗t j ∀ij∈E; i; j ¼ 1; 2; …; 8 ⊗x 78 [6.32, 8]
⊗t 1 [0, 0]
⊗xij ≤ ⊗Dij ; ∀ij∈E
⊗t 2 [1.5, 2.5]
⊗xij ≥ ⊗d ij ; ∀ij∈E ⊗t 3 [4.5, 5.5]
⊗t 4 [6.5, 7.5]
μ1 ≥μ2
⊗t 5 [8.5, 10.5]
μ3 ≥ μ2 ⊗t 6 [14, 14]
μ1 ≤1 ⊗t 7 [15, 17]
⊗t 8 [21.32, 25]
μ2 ≤ 1

μ3 ≤ 1

⊗xij ; ⊗t i ; μ1 ; μ2 ; μ3 ≥0; ∀i; j ¼ 1; 2; …; 8 The degrees of objective achievement for lower bound
solution are ⊗μ 1 =0.818 , ⊗μ 2 =0.818, and ⊗μ 3 =1. If the
Step 5. Solving the GLP model. Based on Huang's [26] project is accomplished through this way, then its cost will be
approach, the model (34) is solved in a two-phase 1,141.41, it will take 21.32 days to complete and its quality
method. In phase 1, the lower bound value of the will be 1,114.32. Now the second phase model is solved to
objective function is found based on Eqs. (12) and determine the lower bound of model. This model consists of
(16). The solution to this model is shown in Table 2. Eqs. (12) and (16). The optimal grey solution to the TCQT
problem is shown in Table 3.
In the case of upper bound solution, cost of the project will
Table 2 Decision vari- be 3362.5, its duration will be 25 days and its quality will be
ables lower bound values Variable Lower bound
618.54. The final degrees of objective achievement for such a
⊗x 12 1.5 problem would be ⊗μ 1 =[0, 0.818], ⊗μ 2 =[0, 0.818], and
⊗x 23 3 ⊗μ 3 =[0.245, 1]. Note that the lower bound solution is
⊗x 24 5 attained under this consideration that the parameters are all
⊗x 36 6 at their best situation, while the upper bound solution is solved
⊗x 45 2 under the worst possible situation. Now, the project manager
⊗x 35 4 (PM) has this possibility to choose the activity time according
⊗x 56 5.5 to the situation. Evidently, the best situation is that the PM can
⊗x 57 3 choose the lower bound values for activities time, but if for
⊗x 67 1 example the cost of an activity changes from its lower bound
⊗x 78 6.32 to its upper bound, the PM will have the ability to choose a
⊗t 1 0 time in an optimal range of the activity that is still optimal
⊗t 2 1.5 even in the grey condition.
⊗t 3 4.5
⊗t 4 6.5
⊗t 5 8.5 6 Conclusions
⊗t 6 14
⊗t 7 15 According to “The Iron Triangle,” time, cost, and quality are
⊗t 8 21.32 three main aspects of any project. In this paper, the continuous
CTQT problem is examined whereby each activity can take a
Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2014) 71:117–126
time within a possible time interval. These types of activities
can be found in real projects such as construction projects in
which an activity can be done in a normal time by given
resources and in a crashed time by additional resources. The
key feature of the proposed method is considering the inherent
uncertainty among the parameters of the TCQT problem.
When a PM applies a CTQT approach, he/she would need to
approximate time, cost, and quality of an activity. In such a
case, using crisp data as the approximated values of these
parameters is a restriction to application of different models.
However, the method proposed here in this study allows the
PM to attend uncertainty and qualm in his/her approximations
which extend applicability of the model in case of loss and ill-
defined data. In this paper, uncertainty of the PM in approx-
imating parameters of the activities is arrived at a model in the
form of grey approximations and a proposed approach is
presented to such a problem. The results of the proposed
method can develop and improve the concepts and methods
of the project management, especially in the CTQT problems,
to case of uncertainty and ambiguity which is an ordinary
situation in the real world problems. As a direction for the
future work, it would be interesting to apply some other forms
of the uncertain data, such as fuzzy sets and interval valued
fuzzy sets in the CTQT. Moreover, another suggestion for the
future research is development of the model of project
tradeoffs by appending risk issues to the parameters of time,
cost, and quality.
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