A two-stage stochastic programming approach for multi-activity tour scheduling

María I. Restrepo, Bernard Gendron and Louis-Martin Rousseau

European Journal of Operational Research, 2017, vol. 262, issue 2, 620-635

Abstract: This paper addresses a discontinuous multi-activity tour scheduling problem under demand uncertainty and when employees have identical skills. The problem is formulated as a two-stage stochastic programming model, where first-stage decisions correspond to the assignment of employees to weekly tours, while second-stage decisions are related to the allocation of work activities and breaks to daily shifts. A multi-cut L-shaped method is presented as a solution approach. Computational results on real-based and randomly generated instances show that the use of the stochastic model helps to reduce understaffing and overstaffing costs, when compared with the expected-value problem solutions.

Keywords: Scheduling; Stochastic multi-activity tour scheduling problem; Two-stage stochastic programming model; L-shaped method; Context-free grammars (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ejores:v:262:y:2017:i:2:p:620-635

DOI: 10.1016/j.ejor.2017.04.055

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