An investigation of heuristic decomposition to tackle workforce scheduling and routing with time-dependent activities constraints

Wasakorn Laesanklang, Dario Landa-Silva, J. Arturo Castillo-Salazar

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

4 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

This paper presents an investigation into the application of heuristic decomposition and mixed-integer programming to tackle workforce scheduling and routing problems (WSRP) that involve timedependent activities constraints. These constraints refer to time-wise dependencies between activities. The decomposition method investigated here is called repeated decomposition with conflict repair (RDCR) and it consists of repeatedly applying a phase of problem decomposition and sub-problem solving, followed by a phase dedicated to conflict repair. In order to deal with the time-dependent activities constraints, the problem decomposition puts all activities associated to the same location and their dependent activities in the same sub-problem. This is to guarantee the satisfaction of time-dependent activities constraints as each subproblem is solved exactly with an exact solver. Once the assignments are made, the time windows of dependent activities are fixed even if those activities are subject to the repair phase. The paper presents an experimental study to assess the performance of the decomposition method when compared to a tailored greedy heuristic. Results show that the proposed RDCR is an effective approach to harness the power of mixed integer programming solvers to tackle the difficult and highly constrained WSRP in practical computational time. Also, an analysis is conducted in order to understand how the performance of the different solution methods (the decomposition, the tailored heuristic and the MIP solver) is affected by the size of the problem instances and other features of the problem. The paper concludes by making some recommendations on the type of method that could be more suitable for different problem sizes.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationOperations Research and Enterprise Systems - 5th International Conference, ICORES 2016, Revised Selected Papers
EditorsBegona Vitoriano, Greg H. Parlier
PublisherSpringer Verlag
Pages239-260
Number of pages22
ISBN (Print)9783319539812
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2017
Externally publishedYes
Event5th International Conference on Operations Research and Enterprise Systems, ICORES 2016 - Rome, Italy
Duration: 23 Feb 201625 Feb 2016

Publication series

NameCommunications in Computer and Information Science
Volume695
ISSN (Print)1865-0929

Conference

Conference5th International Conference on Operations Research and Enterprise Systems, ICORES 2016
Country/TerritoryItaly
CityRome
Period23/02/1625/02/16

Keywords

  • Mixed integer programming
  • Problem decomposition
  • Timedependent activities constraints
  • Workforce scheduling and routing problem

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'An investigation of heuristic decomposition to tackle workforce scheduling and routing with time-dependent activities constraints'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this