Retail store scheduling for profit
Retail store scheduling for profit
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DOI：
10.1016/j.ejor.2014.05.033
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发表时间：
2014-12
期刊：
影响因子：
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通讯作者：
Nicolas Chapados;Marc Joliveau;P. L'Ecuyer;Louis-Martin Rousseau
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文献类型：
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作者：
Nicolas Chapados;Marc Joliveau;P. L'Ecuyer;Louis-Martin Rousseau
尽管具有巨大的经济意义，但零售店销售人员排班优化问题却相对较少受到关注。当前的方法通常试图通过紧密拟合从外生销售预测得出的人员配备曲线来最大限度地降低工资成本，而忽略了额外员工（有时）对销售产生积极影响的能力。相比之下，本文从营业利润最大化的角度构建了零售调度问题，明确认识到销售员工作为收入来源和运营成本产生者的双重角色。我们引入了一种灵活的零售商店销售随机模型，根据特定商店的历史数据进行估计，该模型可以解释所有已知销售驱动因素（包括预定员工数量）的影响，并以高日内分辨率提供准确的销售预测。我们还提出了基于混合整数（MIP）和约束规划（CP）的解决技术，以有效地解决具有利润最大化目标的复杂混合整数非线性调度（MINLP）问题。所提出的方法允许解决完整的每周计划以达到最优，或者以非常小的差距接近最优。在对一家中型零售连锁店的案例研究中，这种综合预测计划方法与基准计划相比，预计净利润将显着增长 2-3%。
In spite of its tremendous economic significance, the problem of sales staff schedule optimization for retail stores has received relatively scant attention. Current approaches typically attempt to minimize payroll costs by closely fitting a staffing curve derived from exogenous sales forecasts, oblivious to the ability of additional staff to (sometimes) positively impact sales. In contrast, this paper frames the retail scheduling problem in terms of operating profit maximization, explicitly recognizing the dual role of sales employees as sources of revenues as well as generators of operating costs. We introduce a flexible stochastic model of retail store sales, estimated from store-specific historical data, that can account for the impact of all known sales drivers, including the number of scheduled staff, and provide an accurate sales forecast at a high intra-day resolution. We also present solution techniques based on mixed-integer (MIP) and constraint programming (CP) to efficiently solve the complex mixed integer non-linear scheduling (MINLP) problem with a profit-maximization objective. The proposed approach allows solving full weekly schedules to optimality, or near-optimality with a very small gap. On a case-study with a medium-sized retail chain, this integrated forecasting–scheduling methodology yields significant projected net profit increases on the order of 2–3% compared to baseline schedules.