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Sufficient Working Subsets for the Tour Scheduling Problem

Author

Listed:
  • Fred F. Easton

    (School of Management, Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York 13244-2130)

  • Donald F. Rossin

    (Owen Graduate School of Management, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee 37203)

Abstract

Mathematical programs to schedule service employees at minimum cost represent each feasible schedule, or tour, with an integer variable. In some service organizations, policies governing employee scheduling practices may permit millions of different tours. A common heuristic strategy is to reformulate the problem from a small working subset of the feasible tours. Solution quality depends on the number and types of schedules included in the model. This paper describes a working subset heuristic based on column generation. The method is general and can accommodate a mix of full- and part-time employees. Experiments revealed its formulations had objective values indistinguishable from those of models using all feasible tours, and significantly lower than those generated by alternative working subset procedures.

Suggested Citation

  • Fred F. Easton & Donald F. Rossin, 1991. "Sufficient Working Subsets for the Tour Scheduling Problem," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 37(11), pages 1441-1451, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:inm:ormnsc:v:37:y:1991:i:11:p:1441-1451
    DOI: 10.1287/mnsc.37.11.1441
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Brusco, Michael J. & Johns, Tony R., 1996. "A sequential integer programming method for discontinuous labor tour scheduling," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 95(3), pages 537-548, December.
    2. Gerard M. Campbell, 1999. "Cross-Utilization of Workers Whose Capabilities Differ," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 45(5), pages 722-732, May.
    3. Gary M. Thompson, 1997. "Labor staffing and scheduling models for controlling service levels," Naval Research Logistics (NRL), John Wiley & Sons, vol. 44(8), pages 719-740, December.
    4. Scott E. Sampson, 2008. "OR PRACTICE---Optimization of Vacation Timeshare Scheduling," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 56(5), pages 1079-1088, October.
    5. Haase, Knut, 1999. "Retail business staff scheduling under complex labor relations," Manuskripte aus den Instituten für Betriebswirtschaftslehre der Universität Kiel 511, Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel, Institut für Betriebswirtschaftslehre.
    6. Michael J. Brusco & Larry W. Jacobs, 1993. "A simulated annealing approach to the cyclic staff‐scheduling problem," Naval Research Logistics (NRL), John Wiley & Sons, vol. 40(1), pages 69-84, February.
    7. Michael J. Brusco & Larry W. Jacobs, 1998. "Personnel Tour Scheduling When Starting-Time Restrictions Are Present," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 44(4), pages 534-547, April.
    8. Brusco, Michael J. & Jacobs, Larry W., 1995. "Cost analysis of alternative formulations for personnel scheduling in continuously operating organizations," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 86(2), pages 249-261, October.
    9. Lagodimos, A. G. & Leopoulos, V., 2000. "Greedy heuristic algorithms for manpower shift planning," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 95-106, October.
    10. Batta, Rajan & Berman, Oded & Wang, Qian, 2007. "Balancing staffing and switching costs in a service center with flexible servers," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 177(2), pages 924-938, March.
    11. Tolga Çezik & Oktay Günlük & Hanan Luss, 2001. "An integer programming model for the weekly tour scheduling problem," Naval Research Logistics (NRL), John Wiley & Sons, vol. 48(7), pages 607-624, October.
    12. Giovanni Felici & Claudio Gentile, 2004. "A Polyhedral Approach for the Staff Rostering Problem," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 50(3), pages 381-393, March.
    13. Thompson, Gary M. & Pullman, Madeleine E., 2007. "Scheduling workforce relief breaks in advance versus in real-time," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 181(1), pages 139-155, August.
    14. Thompson, Gary M. & Goodale, John C., 2006. "Variable employee productivity in workforce scheduling," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 170(2), pages 376-390, April.
    15. Easton, F. F. & Rossin, D. F., 1997. "Overtime schedules for full-time service workers," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 25(3), pages 285-299, June.
    16. Cai, X. & Li, K. N., 2000. "A genetic algorithm for scheduling staff of mixed skills under multi-criteria," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 125(2), pages 359-369, September.
    17. Easton, Fred F. & Mansour, Nashat, 1999. "A distributed genetic algorithm for deterministic and stochastic labor scheduling problems," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 118(3), pages 505-523, November.
    18. Brusco, Michael J., 2015. "A bicriterion algorithm for the allocation of cross-trained workers based on operational and human resource objectives," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 247(1), pages 46-59.
    19. Anuj Mehrotra & Kenneth E. Murphy & Michael A. Trick, 2000. "Optimal shift scheduling: A branch‐and‐price approach," Naval Research Logistics (NRL), John Wiley & Sons, vol. 47(3), pages 185-200, April.
    20. Hur, Daesik & Mabert, Vincent A. & Bretthauer, K.M.Kurt M., 2004. "Real-time schedule adjustment decisions: a case study," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 32(5), pages 333-344, October.

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