TU 5: Scheduling Problems: Case Studies and Solution Techniques

Nysret Musliu

Sunday June 22nd, 2014. (AM - quarter day)

Scheduling problems arise in many applications, including transportation, education, health care, space operations, manufacturing, etc. Due to the complexity of such problems, human experts usually cannot provide good solutions in a reasonable time. Hence, automated scheduling has become a dynamic area of research in Artificial Intelligence and Operations Research.

In this tutorial, we will first give an introduction to scheduling problems and discuss their classification. Several case studies from various application domains (e.g., employee scheduling, school timetabling, and sport scheduling) will be explained in detail. In the second part of this tutorial, we will discuss the state-of-the-art techniques that have been proposed to solve these problems. These methods include complete algorithms (CP, SAT, etc.), metaheuristic techniques, and hybrid algorithms. Finally, we will demonstrate the application of two scheduling systems on real-life problems and discuss current challenges in these areas.