France Telecom workforce scheduling problem : a challenge
RAIRO - Operations Research - Recherche Opérationnelle, Tome 43 (2009) no. 4, pp. 375-386.

In this paper, we describe the methodology used to tackle France Telecom workforce scheduling problem (the subject of the Roadef Challenge 2007) and we report the results obtained on the different data sets provided for the competition. Since the problem at hand appears to be NP-hard and due to the high dimensions of the instance sets, we use a two-step heuristical approach. We first devise a problem-tailored heuristic that provides good feasible solutions and then we use a meta-heuristic scheme to improve the current results. The tailored heuristic makes use of sophisticated integer programming models and the corresponding sub-problems are solved using CPLEX while the meta-heuristic framework is a randomized local search algorithm. The approach herein described allowed us to rank 5th in this challenge.

DOI : 10.1051/ro/2009025
Classification : 90B35, 90B50, 90B70, 90C59
Mots clés : workforce scheduling, schedule generation scheme, roadef challenge
@article{RO_2009__43_4_375_0,
     author = {Pokutta, Sebastian and Stauffer, Gautier},
     title = {France {Telecom} workforce scheduling problem : a challenge},
     journal = {RAIRO - Operations Research - Recherche Op\'erationnelle},
     pages = {375--386},
     publisher = {EDP-Sciences},
     volume = {43},
     number = {4},
     year = {2009},
     doi = {10.1051/ro/2009025},
     zbl = {1173.90410},
     language = {en},
     url = {http://www.numdam.org/articles/10.1051/ro/2009025/}
}
TY  - JOUR
AU  - Pokutta, Sebastian
AU  - Stauffer, Gautier
TI  - France Telecom workforce scheduling problem : a challenge
JO  - RAIRO - Operations Research - Recherche Opérationnelle
PY  - 2009
SP  - 375
EP  - 386
VL  - 43
IS  - 4
PB  - EDP-Sciences
UR  - http://www.numdam.org/articles/10.1051/ro/2009025/
DO  - 10.1051/ro/2009025
LA  - en
ID  - RO_2009__43_4_375_0
ER  - 
%0 Journal Article
%A Pokutta, Sebastian
%A Stauffer, Gautier
%T France Telecom workforce scheduling problem : a challenge
%J RAIRO - Operations Research - Recherche Opérationnelle
%D 2009
%P 375-386
%V 43
%N 4
%I EDP-Sciences
%U http://www.numdam.org/articles/10.1051/ro/2009025/
%R 10.1051/ro/2009025
%G en
%F RO_2009__43_4_375_0
Pokutta, Sebastian; Stauffer, Gautier. France Telecom workforce scheduling problem : a challenge. RAIRO - Operations Research - Recherche Opérationnelle, Tome 43 (2009) no. 4, pp. 375-386. doi : 10.1051/ro/2009025. http://www.numdam.org/articles/10.1051/ro/2009025/

[1] K.R. Baker, Workforce allocation in cyclical scheduling problems: a survey. Oper. Res. Q. 27 (1976) 155-167.

[2] Boost-Library Team, The Boost C++ libraries. http://www.boost.org/ (2006).

[3] J. Bedaux, C++ Mersenne Twister pseudo-random number generator, http://www.bedaux.net/mtrand/ (2006).

[4] P.-F. Dutot, A. Laugier and A.-M. Bustos, Technicians and interventions scheduling for telecommunications. http://www.g-scop.inpg.fr/ChallengeROADEF2007/en/sujet/sujet2.pdf (2006).

[5] C. Hurkens, Incorporating the strength of MIP modeling in Schedule construction. http://www.g-scop.inpg.fr/ChallengeROADEF2007/TEAMS/roadef28/abstract_roadef28.pdf (2007).

[6] ILOG Inc., CPLEX Solver. http://www.ilog.com (2006).

[7] R. Kolisch and S. Hartmann, Experimental evaluation of state-of-the-art heuristics for the resource-constrained project scheduling problem. Eur. J. Oper. Res. 127 (2000) 394-407. | Zbl

[8] R. Kolisch and S. Hartmann, Experimental investigations of heuristics for resource-constrained project scheduling: an update. Eur. J. Oper. Res. 174 (2006) 23-37. | Zbl

[9] H. Mahmoud, Pólya Urn Models. Taylor & Francis Group LLC - CRC Press (2008). | Zbl

[10] D. Merkle, M. Middendorf and H. Schmeck, Ant colony optimization for resource-constrained project-scheduling, IEEE Trans. Evol. Comput. 6 (2002) 333-346.

[11] http://www.g-scop.inpg.fr/ChallengeROADEF2007/

[12] E. Tsang and C. Voudouris, Fast local search and guided local search and their application to British Telecom's workforce scheduling problem. Technical Report CSM-246, Department of Computer Science, University of Essex, UK (1995). | Zbl

Cité par Sources :