Feasibility Study and Optimization of Combination and Scheduling of Crisis Management Projects

The success in crisis management is reached when organizations consider preparedness as well as prevention.
This necessitates the organizations to adopt enhanced management principles, specifically project management
principles. It is well known that the implementation of preventive programs and projects of crisis management
are among the most vital measures to reduce crisis occurrence and its consequences. However, on the other
hand, resources of organizations and responsible authorities are limited and rational management seeks maximum
exploitation of these limited resources to counteract crisis. In this paper, the aim is feasibility study and optimization
of programs and projects of crisis management is such a way that not only allocated resources are sufficient,
but also the goals of crisis management are met satisfactorily. To this end, the optimization approach based on
mathematical programming is used. Two optimization models of crisis management including (1) optimization
of a combination of crisis management projects and (2) optimization of scheduling of crisis management projects
are proposed. The first model seeks selection of the best combination of crisis management projects from a list of
potential projects. While the second model suggests the best schedule of projects implementation. Both models
act in such a way that constraints on required resources and the logical relationship among projects are met, and
moreover, the cost of projects are minimized and goals of crisis management are reached. These models, as a consulting
system, help managers to adopt the best decision concerning crisis projects. Furthermore, the suggested
models are executed on a case study and the results are analyzed