Modeling and Solution Approaches for Resource Assignment with Deployment Restrictions

Anantaram Balakrishnan () and Prakash Mirchandani ()
Additional contact information
Anantaram Balakrishnan: University of Texas at Austin
Prakash Mirchandani: University of Pittsburgh

Chapter Chapter 6 in Optimization Essentials, 2024, pp 195-231 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract Since personnel and equipment costs constitute a large portion of the operating expenses for most organizations, judiciously using these resources to perform the organization’s activities is important to ensure cost-effective operations. This paper addresses a class of resource management problems that entail assigning resources to perform a given set of ordered tasks while meeting policies and restrictions governing the deployment of these resources. We consider two particular kinds of restrictions, called span limits and work content restrictions, that specify upper and lower limits on pairwise and cumulative metrics based on the tasks assigned to each resource. We refer to this problem as the Resource Assignment with Deployment Restrictions (RADR) problem. We discuss several alternative ways to model the problem as a network-based integer program, and contrast these models in terms of the tightness of their linear programming relaxations and model size. This discussion serves to highlight the benefits of developing extended formulations and embedding constraints within the network representation, underscoring the importance of using strong formulations to effectively solve integer programs such as the RADR problems. We also outline three additional strategies—problem reduction, tightening the model with valid inequalities and coefficient lifting, and optimization-based heuristics—to further accelerate solution procedures for the RADR problem. Results from a prior study confirm the computational benefits of incorporating these strategies jointly in the solution method.

Date: 2024
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:isochp:978-981-99-5491-9_6

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/9789819954919

DOI: 10.1007/978-981-99-5491-9_6

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in International Series in Operations Research & Management Science from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().