A university-timetabling problem and its solution using Benders' partitioning–a case study

In this paper, we address a university-timetabling problem and present a methodology that relies on Benders' partitioning for its solution. This partitioning results from the special nature of the underlying integer programming formulation for this problem. We have used our methodology to schedule courses offered by the College of Engineering as well as to those offered university-wide at Virginia Tech. The results clearly depict an improvement in the quality of course schedules obtained by our methodology over those currently used, when the performance of a timetable is measured by the total distance traveled by the faculty members from their offices in respective departments to the classrooms, where the courses are offered.