Microcomputer-based working set generation methods for personnel scheduling

The authors present a new approach to working set generation for personnel scheduling problems. In full-time (FT) and mixed-workforce (MW) experiments, generates the schedules in the working sets from the use of two-phase heuristic labour scheduling solution procedures. The solution procedures were implemented on a 386 microcomputer and did not require the specification of the size of the working sets in advance. In the FT experiment, the general set-covering formulations (GSCFs) associated with the produced working sets were solved with integer programming. The new working set procedure yielded optimal integer solutions for all 36 test problems in the FT experiment. Owing to the size and complexity of the problem data in the MW experiment, the GSCFs associated with the working sets were solved with linear programming, and heuristic rounding procedures were applied to obtain feasible integer solutions. The mean labour costs of these solutions averaged 0.69 per cent less than the mean cost of solutions obtained via the application of heuristic rounding procedures applied to the linear programme solutions for the GSCFs associated with the master sets. Compares solution costs for the new working set method with those associated with other working set generation/refinement procedures. Results indicate that the new method produces lower solution costs in less control processing unit time.