Automated Scheduling and Planning: From Theory to Practice

Description

Solving scheduling problems has long presented a challenge for computer scientists and operations researchers. The field continues to expand as researchers and practitioners examine ever more challenging problems and develop automated methods capable of solving them. This book provides 11 case studies in automated scheduling, submitted by leading researchers from across the world. Each case study examines a challenging real-world problem by analysing the problem in detail before investigating how the problem may be solved using state of the art techniques.The areas covered include aircraft scheduling, microprocessor instruction scheduling, sports fixture scheduling, exam scheduling, personnel scheduling and production scheduling. Problem solving methodologies covered include exact as well as (meta)heuristic approaches, such as local search techniques, linear programming, genetic algorithms and ant colony optimisation.The field of automated scheduling has the potential to impact many aspects of our lives and work; this book highlights contributions to the field by world class researchers. Front Matter....Pages 1-13 Airport Airside Optimisation Problems....Pages 1-37 Instruction Scheduling in Microprocessors....Pages 39-60 Sports Scheduling: Minimizing Travel for English Football Supporters....Pages 61-90 Educational Timetabling....Pages 91-108 Automated Shift Design and Break Scheduling....Pages 109-127 Nurse Rostering: A Complex Example of Personnel Scheduling with Perspectives....Pages 129-153 Radiotherapy Scheduling....Pages 155-189 Recent Advances in Evolutionary Algorithms for Job Shop Scheduling....Pages 191-224 Multi-objective Grid Scheduling....Pages 225-249 Dynamic Multi-objective Job Shop Scheduling: A Genetic Programming Approach....Pages 251-282 Dynamic Vehicle Routing: A Memetic Ant Colony Optimization Approach....Pages 283-301 Back Matter....Pages 303-303