Scheduling of casino security officers

The Adelaide Casino required high quality 38 hour week personnel schedules for their 40 permanent security staff officers, whilst maintaining a small pool of casual employees. The task was to first determine the number and placement of shifts throughout each typical week, subject to head count data and minimum officer requirements as specified by the casino. These results were then used to create a single shift 40 week cyclic roster satisfying prescribed union and quality conditions. Shifts were then assigned to the single shift schedule using an integer programming model. This project was characterised by the fact that the number of permanent personnel was fixed, whilst the casual pool was allowed to float. It is demonstrated that the size of this casual poll can be traded off against alternative shift numbers starting times, whilst fixing the permanent workforce places bounds on the frequency of off weekend cycles.