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On the characterization and generation of nurse scheduling problem instances

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  • Vanhoucke, Mario
  • Maenhout, Broos

Abstract

Due to its complexity and relevance in practice, many different procedures have been proposed in the operations research literature to solve the well-known nurse scheduling problem (NSP). The NSP assigns nurses to shifts per day maximizing the overall quality of the roster while taking various constraints into account. The often highly case-specific workplace conditions in hospital departments have resulted in the development of dedicated (meta-)heuristics to find a workable schedule in an acceptable time limit. However, in spite of research community posing a growing need for benchmarking, these procedures lack any base for comparison. In this paper, we propose a range of complexity indicators which characterize nurse scheduling problem instances, and a problem generator in order to construct a comparative test framework for various solution procedures for the NSP. We show that the different complexity indicators for the NSP presented in this paper predict the computational effort of a particular NSP instance for a particular solution procedure. Moreover, the comparison of procedures and good predictions of their performance allow the a priori selection of the best solution procedure, based on the simple calculation of the indicators. Hence, with the developed NSP generator those indicators can facilitate the evaluation of existing and future research techniques. Tests on a simple IP model illustrate the use of the proposed indicators.

Suggested Citation

  • Vanhoucke, Mario & Maenhout, Broos, 2009. "On the characterization and generation of nurse scheduling problem instances," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 196(2), pages 457-467, July.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:ejores:v:196:y:2009:i:2:p:457-467
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Wolbeck, Lena Antonia, 2019. "Fairness aspects in personnel scheduling," Discussion Papers 2019/16, Free University Berlin, School of Business & Economics.
    2. Jonas Ingels & Broos Maenhout, 2017. "Employee substitutability as a tool to improve the robustness in personnel scheduling," OR Spectrum: Quantitative Approaches in Management, Springer;Gesellschaft für Operations Research e.V., vol. 39(3), pages 623-658, July.
    3. Maenhout, Broos & Vanhoucke, Mario, 2013. "An integrated nurse staffing and scheduling analysis for longer-term nursing staff allocation problems," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 41(2), pages 485-499.
    4. Gréanne Leeftink & Erwin W. Hans, 2018. "Case mix classification and a benchmark set for surgery scheduling," Journal of Scheduling, Springer, vol. 21(1), pages 17-33, February.
    5. Wolbeck, Lena & Kliewer, Natalia & Marques, Inês, 2020. "Fair shift change penalization scheme for nurse rescheduling problems," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 284(3), pages 1121-1135.
    6. Lai, David S.W. & Leung, Janny M.Y. & Dullaert, Wout & Marques, Inês, 2020. "A graph-based formulation for the shift rostering problem," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 284(1), pages 285-300.
    7. Ingels, Jonas & Maenhout, Broos, 2019. "Optimised buffer allocation to construct stable personnel shift rosters," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 102-117.
    8. Patrick De Causmaecker & Greet Vanden Berghe, 2012. "Towards a reference model for timetabling and rostering," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 194(1), pages 167-176, April.
    9. Peyman Kiani Nahand & Mahdi Hamid & Mahdi Bastan & Ali Mollajan, 2019. "Human resource management: new approach to nurse scheduling by considering human error," International Journal of System Assurance Engineering and Management, Springer;The Society for Reliability, Engineering Quality and Operations Management (SREQOM),India, and Division of Operation and Maintenance, Lulea University of Technology, Sweden, vol. 10(6), pages 1429-1443, December.
    10. Maenhout, Broos & Vanhoucke, Mario, 2018. "A perturbation matheuristic for the integrated personnel shift and task re-scheduling problem," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 269(3), pages 806-823.
    11. Jonas Ingels & Broos Maenhout, 2018. "The impact of overtime as a time-based proactive scheduling and reactive allocation strategy on the robustness of a personnel shift roster," Journal of Scheduling, Springer, vol. 21(2), pages 143-165, April.

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