A logic approach to the resolution of constraints in timetabling

The construction of timetables involving three or more variables taking values from domains having thousands of values with several dozen constraints having different priorities is a problem common to many organizations. Various heuristic solutions have been proposed using results based on graph theory, mathematical programming and manual methods. The authors propose an approach based on logic programming using the first order predicate calculus. An algorithm has been developed, implemented in WPROLOG, and thoroughly tested on an Amdahl 5880 under VM HPL.