Approach to Nurse Scheduling Problem with individual difference of preference in work hours

It is important in health care to plan for a shortage of nurses, especially in view of the aging population in many developed countries. Many nurses wish to have reductions in their irregular working hours, and therefore it is desirable to find work schedules which are optimal, constrained by the preferences of nurses. The problem of scheduling is made more complex by such constraints, and therefore cannot be regarded as a simple permutation problem. In this paper, the Nurse Scheduling Problem is solved by a genetic algorithm, allowing individual preferences to be included. The paper describes the sensitivity of the solution procedure to some of the parameters of the heuristic procedure. [In Japanese.]