eCommons

 

Shift Scheduling in Services When Employees Have Limited Availability: An L. P. Approach

dc.contributor.authorThompson, Gary
dc.date.accessioned2020-09-12T21:10:10Z
dc.date.available2020-09-12T21:10:10Z
dc.date.issued1990-08-01
dc.description.abstractThis paper compares two linear programming (LP) models for shift scheduling in services where homogeneously-skilled employees are available at limited times. Although both models are based on set covering approaches, one explicitly matches employees to shifts, while the other imposes this matching implicitly. Each model is used in three forms—one with complete, another with very limited meal break placement flexibility, and a third without meal breaks—to provide initial schedules to a completion/improvement heuristic. The term completion/improvement heuristic is used to describe a construction/ improvement heuristic operating on a starting schedule. On 80 test problems varying widely in scheduling flexibility, employee staffing requirements, and employee availability characteristics, all six LP-based procedures generated lower cost schedules than a comparison from-scratch construction/improvement heuristic. This heuristic, which perpetually maintains an explicit matching of employees to shifts, consists of three phases which add, drop, and modify shifts. In terms of schedule cost, schedule generation time, and model size, the procedures based on the implicit model performed better, as a group, than those based on the explicit model. The LP model with complete break placement flexibility and implicitly matching employees to shifts generated schedules costing 6.7% less than those developed by the from-scratch heuristic.
dc.description.legacydownloadsThompson49_Shift_scheduling.pdf: 1609 downloads, before Aug. 1, 2020.
dc.identifier.other8796415
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/1813/72232
dc.language.isoen_US
dc.relation.doihttps://doi.org/10.1016/0272-6963(90)90160-F
dc.rightsRequired Publisher Statement: © Journal of Operations Management. Final version published as: Thompson, G. M. (1990). Shift scheduling in services when employees have limited availability: An L. P. approach. Journal of Operations Management, 9(3), 352-370. Reprinted with permission. All rights reserved.
dc.subjectlinear programming
dc.subjectshift scheduling
dc.subjectstaffing
dc.subjectmeal breaks
dc.subjectservice industry
dc.titleShift Scheduling in Services When Employees Have Limited Availability: An L. P. Approach
dc.typearticle
local.authorAffiliationThompson, Gary: gmt1@cornell.edu Cornell University School of Hotel Administration

Files

Original bundle
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
Loading...
Thumbnail Image
Name:
Thompson49_Shift_scheduling.pdf
Size:
792.79 KB
Format:
Adobe Portable Document Format