Four-week employee scheduling using the (73, 73, 62)‎ days-off schedule

Abstract EN

An efficient heuristic technique is developed for a real-life labor days-off scheduling problem with a four-week cycle.

Using a workdays/off-days notation, this days-off arrangement is referred to as the (7/3, 7/3, 6/2) schedule.

Given two different levels of labor demands, D for weekdays and E for weekends, the primary objective is to minimize the workforce size.

The secondary objective is to reduce the number of active days-off patterns required.

The solution technique does not include linear or integer programming, but it utilizes the dual solution to determine the workforce size and feasible days-off assignments.

Requiring only simple calculations, the new technique offers an efficient alternative to integer programming.