http://www3.eng.cam.ac.uk/~hj231/Papers/rostering.pdf

Staff scheduling and rostering: A review of applications, methods and models

A decision support system for the management of an agile supply chain that provides an architecture including a server side and a client side. The server side includes a decision support system database that interfaces with model engine that performs analysis of the data to support planning decisions. The server side includes a server manager that coordinates requests for service and information. The client side includes decision frames that present the various view points available in the system to the users. A frame manager coordinates the requests from decision support frames to access the needed data and models. The decision support frames provide a view into supply chain and integrate analytical models responsive to the view point of a business process such as demand management. The frames include a supply management frame, a demand management frame, a vendor managed replenishment frame, a Planning, Sales and Inventory planning frame and a distribution network design frame. The model engine includes a component procurement policy development module, a finished goods distribution network design module, an aggregate production planning module, a finished goods inventory management module, a sales forecasting and planning module, a market data analysis module, a vendor managed replenishment module and various utilities such as generic linear programming solvers and statistical analysis routines. The system also includes a demand and supply reconciliation process reconciling production, sales and inventory and reconciling a top-down forecast with a bottom-up forecast where an expert based model is used for the bottom-up forecast. A capacity planning process determines the feasibility of a capacity plan responsive to supply constraints. A vendor managed replenishment process plans inventory replenishment analysis and periods responsive to predicted sales and supply constraints. A scenario management process associated with all frames enables the user to analyze different hypothetical scenarios for comparison of business plans. The frame manager includes a system integrator and a functional integrator. A database management system manages the supply and maintenance of information needed by the modeling processes through the frame manager. A domain management process limits data available to said frames responsive to a user selection.

Decision support system for the management of an agile supply chain

http://web.nchu.edu.tw/pweb/users/arborfish/lesson/8682.pdf

A survey of variants and extensions of the resource-constrained project scheduling problem

Tabu search (TS) has provided advances for solving difficult optimization problems in many domains. At the same time, fundamental TS strategies are often not applied as effectively as they might be, and their underlying rationale is often not completely understood. We examine basic concepts and principles of tabu search, emphasizing those that have sometimes led to applying the label “adaptive memory programming” to this class of methods.

/pdf/tabu-search-and-adaptive-memory-programming-advances-2ls9z4f5ay.pdf

Tabu Search and Adaptive Memory Programming — Advances, Applications and Challenges

The concept of a hyperheuristic is introduced as an approach that operates at a higher lever of abstraction than current metaheuristic approaches. The hyperheuristic manages the choice of which lower-level heuristic method should be applied at any given time, depending upon the characteristics of the region of the solution space currently under exploration. We analyse the behaviour of several different hyperheuristic approaches for a real-world personnel scheduling problem. Results obtained show the effectiveness of our approach for this problem and suggest wider applicability of hyperheuristic approaches to other problems of scheduling and combinatorial optimisation.

A hyperheuristic approach to scheduling a sales summit

Integrating project scheduling and material ordering adds more realism to project scheduling and considers additional trade-offs that could lead to reductions in the overall project cost. In this paper we review the evolution of the integrated problem, and investigate the impact of treating the activity duration as a decision variable on the activities schedule and materials plan. The effects of introducing rewards (penalties) for early (late) completion as well as materials quantity discounts on the project schedule and cost are also considered- These additions provide scheduling flexibility that might lead to further reduction in the project's total cost or makespan. Considering the various project costs, we found that there exists an optimal schedule that either starts as early as possible (ai time zero) or completes as late as possible. We also show that if the project starts at time zero, then its duration cannot be longer than that for the case where the schedule ends as late as possible. Ft is also...

Integrated project scheduling and material planning with variable activity duration and rewards

In this paper, we present a heuristic procedure based on tabu search (TS) and intelligent memory structures for solving this problem. The TS method starts with a feasible schedule generated by a greedy forward dispatching procedure, then through a series of intensification and diversification steps it improves on the initial schedule. The improvement in the value of the objective function is observed interactively. The search can be terminated as the improvement in the value of the objective function stabilizes. Application of the TS method to different audit scheduling problems has consistently improved the value of the cost minimization objective function.

Tabu Search in Audit Scheduling

Audit scheduling with overlapping activities and sequence-dependent setup costs

Tabu search in audit scheduling

Audit scheduling with overlapping activities and sequence dependent setup cost has not been treated in literature. This paper presents a formulation and a solution approach for this audit scheduling problem. In this paper, we treat the activity duration as a decision variable and include granting a reward for completing the project ahead of its due date. We show that these two changes lead to further reduction in the project total cost and may also lead tot a reduction in the project duration.

A.A. Elimam

Papers

Integrated project scheduling and material planning with variable activity duration and rewards

Tabu Search in Audit Scheduling

Audit scheduling with overlapping activities and sequence-dependent setup costs

Tabu search in audit scheduling

Integrated Project Scheduling and Material Planning with Variable Activity Duration and Rewards