The 34th IPP Symposium
Combinatorial Optimization Methods for Personnel Scheduling Problems
Bernard Gendron, Université de Montréal
Automated personnel scheduling approaches have greatly benefited from the advances in the field of combinatorial optimization over the past decades. Remarkable successes have been achieved, most notably in the transportation area, where mass transit and airline companies realized substantial economies by using specialized software tools based on combinatorial optimization methods. In spite of these achievements, many organizations still hesitate to adopt combinatorial optimization methods to automate the process of scheduling their employees.
This talk surveys combinatorial optimization methods for solving personnel scheduling problems. I will explain their strengths and weaknesses based on my own experience with two applications: 1) scheduling physicians in the emergency rooms of major hospitals in the Montreal area; 2) scheduling employees in Quebec's liquor stores, a highly unionized environment. I will argue that the latest advances in combinatorial optimization and computer science contribute to solve problems larger than ever with easy-to-implement software packages. Yet research is still needed, as many personnel scheduling problems remain very difficult to solve. One area that is particularly promising is the development of hybrid methods that combine the advantages of several approaches.
