Skip to main content
Log in

Sub-daily Staff Scheduling for a Logistics Service Provider

  • Fachbeitrag
  • Published:
KI - Künstliche Intelligenz Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

The current paper uses a scenario from logistics to show that solution approaches based on metaheuristics, and in particular particle swarm optimization (PSO) can significantly add to the improvement of staff scheduling in practice. Sub-daily planning, which is the focus of our research offers considerable productivity reserves for companies but also creates complex challenges for the planning software. Modifications of the traditional PSO method are required for a successful application to scheduling software. Results are compared to different variants of the evolution strategy (ES). Both metaheuristics significantly outperform manual planning, with PSO delivering the best overall results.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Fig. 1
Fig. 2

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. ATOSS Software AG, Heidelberg FH (eds) (2006) Standort Deutschland 2006. Zukunftssicherung durch intelligentes Personalmanagement, München

    Google Scholar 

  2. Bäck T (1996) Evolutionary algorithms in theory and practice. Oxford University Press, London

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  3. Bäck T, Fogel DB, Michalewicz Z (eds) (1997) Handbook of evolutionary computation. Institute of Physics Publishing, Bristol

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  4. Beyer HG, Schwefel HP (2002) Evolution strategies: a comprehensive introduction. Nat Comput 1:3–52

    Article  MATH  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  5. Blöchlinger I (2004) Modeling staff scheduling problems. A tutorial. Eur J Oper Res 158:533–542

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Brodersen O (2008) Eignung schwarmintelligenter Verfahren für die betriebliche Entscheidungsunterstützung. Cuvillier, Göttingen

    Google Scholar 

  7. Chu SC, Chen YT, Ho JH (2006) Timetable scheduling using particle swarm optimization. In: Proceedings of the international conference on innovative computing, information and control (ICICIC Beijing 2006), vol 3, pp 324–327

  8. Ernst AT, Jiang H, Krishnamoorthy M, Owens B, Sier D (2002) An annotated bibliography of personnel scheduling and rostering. Ann OR 127:21–144

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  9. Fukuyama Y (2003) Fundamentals of particle swarm optimization techniques. In: Lee KY, El-Sharkawi MA (eds) Modern heuristic optimization techniques with applications to power systems. Wiley-IEEE Press, New York, pp 24–51

    Google Scholar 

  10. Garey MR, Johnson DS (1979) Computers and intractability. A guide to the theory of NP-completeness. Freeman, New York

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  11. Herdy M (1990) Application of the ‘evolutionsstrategie’ to discrete optimization problems. In: Schwefel HP, Männer R (eds) Parallel problem solving from nature. Springer, Berlin, pp 188–192

    Google Scholar 

  12. Kennedy J, Eberhart RC (1995) Particle swarm optimization. In: Proc of the IEEE int conf on neural networks. IEEE, New York, pp 1942–1948

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  13. Kennedy J, Eberhart RC, Shi Y (2001) Swarm intelligence. Kaufmann, New York

    Google Scholar 

  14. Kragelund L, KabelT (1998) Employee timetabling. an empirical study. Master’s thesis, Department of Computer Science, University of Aarhus, Denmark

  15. Li R, Emmerich MTM, Bovenkamp EGP, Eggermont J, Bäck T, Dijkstra J, Reiber JHC (2006) Mixed integer evolution strategies and their application to intravascular ultrasound image analysis. In: Rothlauf F (ed) Applications of evolutionary computation. LNCS, vol 3907. Springer, Berlin, pp 415–426

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  16. Meisels A, Schaerf A (2003) Modelling and solving employee timetabling. Ann Math Artif Intell 39:41–59

    Article  MATH  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  17. Nissen V (1994) Solving the quadratic assignment problem with clues from nature. IEEE Trans Neural Netw 5(1):66–72

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Nissen V, Gold S (2008) Survivable network design with an evolution strategy. In: Yang A, Shan Y, Bui LT (eds) Success in evolutionary computation. Studies in computational intelligence. Springer, Berlin, pp 263–283

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  19. Nissen V, Günther M (2009) Staff scheduling with particle swarm optimization and evolution strategies. In: Cotta C, Cowling P (eds) EvoCOP. LNCS, vol 5482. Springer, Berlin, pp 228–239

    Google Scholar 

  20. Parsopoulos KE, Vrahatis MN (2002) Recent approaches to global optimization problems through particle swarm optimization. Nat Comput 1:235–306

    Article  MATH  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  21. Poli R (2007) An analysis of publications on particle swarm optimization. Report CSM-469, Dep of Computer Science, University of Essex, England

  22. Proudfoot Consulting (2007) Produktivitätsbericht 2007. Company Report

  23. Rudolph G (1994) An evolutionary algorithm for integer programming. In: Davidor Y, Schwefel HP, Männer R (eds) PPSN III. LNCS, vol 866. Springer, Berlin, pp 139–148

    Google Scholar 

  24. Scherf B (2005) Wirtschaftliche Nutzenaspekte der Personaleinsatzplanung. In: Fank M, Scherf B (eds) Handbuch Personaleinsatzplanung. Datakontext, Köln, pp 55–83

    Google Scholar 

  25. Schindler B, Rothlauf F, Pesch E (2002) Evolution strategies, network random keys, and the one-max tree problem. In: Applications of evolutionary computing: EvoWorkshops 2002. LNCS, vol 2279. Springer, Berlin, pp 29–40

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  26. Tasgetiren MF, Sevkli M, Liang YC, Gencyilmaz G (2004) Particle swarm optimization algorithm for single machine total weighted tardiness problem. In: Proceedings of the CEC 2004. IEEE, New York, pp 1412–1419

    Google Scholar 

  27. Tien J, Kamiyama A (1982) On manpower scheduling algorithms. SIAM Rev 24(3):275–287

    Article  MATH  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  28. Vanden Berghe G (2002) An advanced model and novel meta-heuristic solution methods to personnel scheduling in healthcare. Thesis, University of Gent

  29. Veeramachaneni K (2003) Optimization using particle swarm with near neighbor interactions. In: GECCO-2003. LNCS, vol 2723. Springer, Berlin, pp 110–121

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  30. Veeramachaneni K, Osadciw L, Kamath G (2007) Probabilistically driven particle swarms for optimization of multi-valued discrete problems: design and analysis. In: Proceedings of the IEEE SIS 2007, Honolulu, 2007. IEEE, New York, pp 141–149

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Volker Nissen.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Günther, M., Nissen, V. Sub-daily Staff Scheduling for a Logistics Service Provider. Künstl Intell 24, 105–113 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13218-010-0023-5

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13218-010-0023-5

Keywords

Navigation