TY - JOUR

T1 - A column generation-based heuristic for rostering with work patterns

A1 - Lusby,Richard Martin

A1 - Dohn,Anders Høeg

A1 - Range,Troels Martin

A1 - Larsen,Jesper

AU - Lusby,Richard Martin

AU - Dohn,Anders Høeg

AU - Range,Troels Martin

AU - Larsen,Jesper

PB - Palgrave Macmillan Ltd.

PY - 2012

Y1 - 2012

N2 - This paper addresses the Ground Crew Rostering Problem with Work Patterns, an important manpower planning problem arising in the ground operations of airline companies. We present a cutting stock-based integer programming formulation of the problem and describe a powerful heuristic decomposition approach, which utilizes column generation and variable fixing, to construct efficient rosters for a six-month time horizon. The time horizon is divided into smaller blocks, where overlaps between the blocks ensure continuity. The proposed methodology is able to circumvent one step of the conventional roster construction process by generating rosters directly based on the estimated workload. We demonstrate that this approach has the additional advantage of being able to easily incorporate robustness in the roster. Computational results on real-life instances confirm the efficiency of the approach.

AB - This paper addresses the Ground Crew Rostering Problem with Work Patterns, an important manpower planning problem arising in the ground operations of airline companies. We present a cutting stock-based integer programming formulation of the problem and describe a powerful heuristic decomposition approach, which utilizes column generation and variable fixing, to construct efficient rosters for a six-month time horizon. The time horizon is divided into smaller blocks, where overlaps between the blocks ensure continuity. The proposed methodology is able to circumvent one step of the conventional roster construction process by generating rosters directly based on the estimated workload. We demonstrate that this approach has the additional advantage of being able to easily incorporate robustness in the roster. Computational results on real-life instances confirm the efficiency of the approach.

KW - column generation

KW - manpower planning

KW - optimization

KW - cutting stock problem

UR - http://www.palgrave-journals.com/jors/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/jors201127a.html#aff2

U2 - 10.1057/jors.2011.27

DO - 10.1057/jors.2011.27

JO - Operational Research Society. Journal

JF - Operational Research Society. Journal

SN - 0160-5682

IS - 2

VL - 63

SP - 261

EP - 277

ER -