Scheduling employees in Quebec's liquor stores with integer programming

Scheduling employees in Quebec's liquor stores with integer programming

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Article ID: iaor20061987
Country: United States
Volume: 35
Issue: 5
Start Page Number: 402
End Page Number: 410
Publication Date: Sep 2005
Journal: Interfaces
Authors:
Keywords: planning, programming: integer, timetabling
Abstract:

The SAQ (in French, Société des alcools du Québec) is a public corporation of the Province of Quebec responsible for distributing and selling alcohol-based products in its territory through a large network of more than 400 stores and warehouses. Every week, the SAQ has to schedule more than 3,000 employees. Until 2002, it handled this process manually, incurring estimated expenses of $1,300,000 (CAN). I developed a solution engine that interacts with a Web-based database system developed in house to produce the desired schedules. This solution engine implements an integer-programming (IP) model using ILOG Concert Technology and solves the IP formulation with ILOG CPLEX. The project has contributed to increasing the efficiency of the organization by reducing the costs of producing the schedules and by improving the SAQ's management of human resources. Overall, the SAQ estimates that automated scheduling has saved over $1,000,000 (CAN) annually.

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