Integrated Personnel Scheduling in the Service Industry

该项目的主要目标是开发一个可供服务业使用的综合决策支持系统，以更好地满足其长期、中期和日常的人员配备需求。在每个级别上，潜在问题都将被建模为大规模整数规划，并使用精确方法和启发式相结合的方法来解决。这项研究的很大一部分目的是设计有效的求解算法。一个相关的目标是开发新的分解技术和边界方案。由于在这些级别上出现的许多子问题尚未由研究界解决，因此很可能需要额外的建模来处理定性问题、不确定性和影响实际应用的约束的复杂性质。所开发的方法的实施将着眼于在面对不确定性时的计算效率和稳健性。预期结果包括：(1)改进了服务行业人员计划和调度的解决方法；(2)更好地理解了与每周旅游生成和中断管理有关的建模问题；(3)相关算法的理论和实践特性；(4)综合决策支持系统的设计。有效的人员调度已成为服务企业保持竞争力的主要手段之一。与制造业不同，制造业的规则是标准班次和休息日，而服务机构的运营时间长达一周7天，每天24小时，面临着千差万别的需求。不良的员工时间表可能会导致闲置时间过多的员工供过于求，或者导致客户不满的供应不足，从而导致业务损失。另一种说法是，这个项目的一个重要目标是为不同类型的劳动力找到可靠的时间表。管理层面临的普遍问题是在不违反劳动协议、公司政策和政府规定的情况下，以最低成本满足日常人员需求。在长期规划层面，必须考虑决定长期劳动力规模和构成的问题。在每周一级，必须跟踪关键资源并更新计划以满足需求变化。实时控制在缺勤、设备故障和其他需要在线重新安排日程的情况下在日常层面发挥作用。

The principal goal of this project is to develop an integrated decision support system that can be used by the service industry to better meet their long-term, mid-range, and day-to-day staffing needs. At each of these levels, the underlying problems will be modeled as large-scale integer programs and solved with a combination of exact methods and heuristics. A significant portion of the research is aimed at devising efficient solution algorithms. An associated objective is to develop new decomposition techniques and bounding schemes. Because many of the subproblems that arise at each of these levels have yet to be addressed by the research community, it is likely that additional modeling will be required to deal with qualitative issues, uncertainty, and the intricate nature of the constraints that inform practical applications. The methodologies developed will be implemented with an eye toward computational efficiency and robustness in the face of uncertainty. Expected results include: (1) the development of improved solution methods for personnel planning and scheduling in the service industry; (2) a greater understanding of modeling issues with respect to weekly tour generation and disruption management; (3) theoretical and practical characterizations of the performance of related algorithms; and (4) the design of an integrated decision support system. Effective personnel scheduling has become one of the primary means by which service enterprises remain competitive. Unlike manufacturing where standard shifts and days off are the rule, service organizations operate up to 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and face widely varying demand. Poor staff schedules can lead to an oversupply of workers with too much idle time, or an undersupply with customer dissatisfaction and a resultant loss of business. Stated alternatively, an important goal of this project is to find robust schedules for a nonhomogeneous workforce. The general problem faced by management is to meet daily staffing requirements at minimum cost without violating labor agreements, company policies, and government regulations. At the long-term planning level, consideration must be given to issues that determine the size and composition of the permanent workforce. At the weekly level, critical resources must be tracked and schedules updated to meet changes in demand. Real-time control come into play at the day-to-day level where absenteeism, equipment failures, and other disruptions call for online rescheduling.