An Efficient Algorithm to the Integrated Shift and Task Scheduling Problem

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new efficient algorithm for the integrated shift and task scheduling problem, addressing high flexibility and demand, and demonstrating significant reductions in solution times through extensive experiments.

Contribution

It proposes a novel method for solving highly flexible integrated scheduling problems, including a tight lower bound and improved computational efficiency.

Findings

Significant reduction in solution times compared to existing methods

Effective handling of high flexibility in shift and task scheduling

Demonstrated efficiency through experiments on real and simulated data

Abstract

This paper deals with operational models for integrated shift and task scheduling problem. Staff scheduling problem is a special case of this with staff requirements as given input to the problem. Both problems become hard to solve when the problems are considered with flexible shifts. Current literature on these problems leaves good scope for potential research. In this article, we propose a new method to solve the integrated problem and its special case, the staff scheduling problem. We consider these problems with wide flexibility - a feature that is addressed in a limited way in the existing literature. We introduce a new technique to solve the problem with large demand efficiently. When the objective function is the number of workers, we provide a tight lower bound that is easily computable. Through a number of numerical experiments with live and simulated problem instances, we demonstrate huge savings in the solution times over the existing ones.