Solution approaches to large shift scheduling problems

Issue		RAIRO Oper. Res. Volume 42, Number 2, April-June 2008 CIRO 05


Page(s)		229 - 258
DOI		10.1051/ro:2008006
Published online		17 May 2008

RAIRO-Oper. Res. 42 (2008) 229-258
DOI: 10.1051/ro:2008006

Solution approaches to large shift scheduling problems

Monia Rekik¹, Jean-François Cordeau² and François Soumis¹

¹ École Polytechnique de Montréal and GERAD, C.P. 6079, succ. Centre-Ville Montréal, H3C 3A7, Canada
² HEC Montréal and GERAD, 3000, chemin de la Côte-Sainte-Catherine, Montréal H3T 2A7, Canada; jean-francois.cordeau@hec.ca

(Received May 31, 2007. Accepted November 28, 2007. Published online 17 May 2008.)

Abstract
This paper considers large shift scheduling problems with different shift start times and lengths, fractionable breaks and work stretch duration restrictions. Two solution approaches are proposed to solve the problems over a multiple-day planning horizon. The first approach is based on a local branching strategy and the second one is based on a temporal decomposition of the problem. Local branching is very efficient in finding good feasible solutions when compared to a classical branch-and-bound procedure. However, the decomposition approach has the advantage of yielding feasible solutions in short computing times, even for difficult instances.

Mathematics Subject Classification. 90C10, 90C11, 90C29.

Key words: Shift scheduling, flexibility, fractionable breaks, work stretch restrictions, forward and backward constraints, local branching, heuristic.

© EDP Sciences, ROADEF, SMAI 2008

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