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Optimal shift scheduling: A branch‐and‐price approach

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  • Anuj Mehrotra
  • Kenneth E. Murphy
  • Michael A. Trick

Abstract

We present a branch‐and‐price technique for optimal staff scheduling with multiple rest breaks, meal break, and break windows. We devise and implement specialized branching rules suitable for solving the set covering type formulation implicitly, using column generation. Our methodology is more widely applicable and computationally superior to the alternative methods in the literature. We tested our methodology on 365 test problems involving between 1728 and 86400 shift variations, and 20 demand patterns. In a direct comparison with an alternative method, our approach yields significant improvements both in cpu time and in the number of problem instances solved to optimality. The improvements were particularly marked for problems involving larger numbers of feasible shifts. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 47: 185–200, 2000

Suggested Citation

  • 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.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:navres:v:47:y:2000:i:3:p:185-200
    DOI: 10.1002/(SICI)1520-6750(200004)47:33.0.CO;2-7
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    Cited by:

    1. Jens O. Brunner & Jonathan F. Bard & Jan M. Köhler, 2013. "Bounded flexibility in days‐on and days‐off scheduling," Naval Research Logistics (NRL), John Wiley & Sons, vol. 60(8), pages 678-701, December.
    2. Hua Ni & Hernán Abeledo, 2007. "A branch-and-price approach for large-scale employee tour scheduling problems," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 155(1), pages 167-176, November.
    3. Zhixing Luo & Hu Qin & Wenbin Zhu & Andrew Lim, 2016. "Branch‐and‐price‐and‐cut for the manpower routing problem with synchronization constraints," Naval Research Logistics (NRL), John Wiley & Sons, vol. 63(2), pages 138-171, March.
    4. María I. Restrepo & Bernard Gendron & Louis-Martin Rousseau, 2016. "Branch-and-Price for Personalized Multiactivity Tour Scheduling," INFORMS Journal on Computing, INFORMS, vol. 28(2), pages 334-350, May.
    5. Daniel Villeneuve & Jacques Desrosiers & Marco Lübbecke & François Soumis, 2005. "On Compact Formulations for Integer Programs Solved by Column Generation," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 139(1), pages 375-388, October.
    6. Douglas S. Altner & Anthony C. Rojas & Leslie D. Servi, 2018. "A two-stage stochastic program for multi-shift, multi-analyst, workforce optimization with multiple on-call options," Journal of Scheduling, Springer, vol. 21(5), pages 517-531, October.
    7. Jeroen Beliën & Erik Demeulemeester, 2007. "On the trade-off between staff-decomposed and activity-decomposed column generation for a staff scheduling problem," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 155(1), pages 143-166, November.

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