• Login
    View Item 
    •   Vlerick Repository Home
    • Research Output
    • Research Communication
    • View Item
    •   Vlerick Repository Home
    • Research Output
    • Research Communication
    • View Item
    JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.

    Browse

    All of Vlerick RepositoryCommunities & CollectionsPublication DateAuthorsTitlesSubjectsKnowledge Domain/IndustryThis CollectionPublication DateAuthorsTitlesSubjectsKnowledge Domain/Industry

    My Account

    LoginRegister

    Contact & Info

    ContactVlerick Journal ListOpen AccessVlerick Business School

    Statistics

    Display statistics

    An electromagnetism meta-heuristic for the nurse scheduling problem

    • CSV
    • RefMan
    • EndNote
    • BibTex
    • RefWorks
    Publication type
    Working paper
    Author
    Maenhout, Broos
    Vanhoucke, Mario
    Publication Year
    2005
    Publication Issue
    26
    Publication Number of pages
    51
    
    Metadata
    Show full item record
    Abstract
    In this paper, we present a novel meta-heuristic technique for the nurse scheduling problem (NSP). This well-known scheduling problem assigns nurses to shifts per day taking both hard and soft constraints into account. The objective is to maximize the preferences of the nurses and to minimize the total penalty cost from violations of the soft constraints. The problem is known to be NP-hard. Due to its complexity and relevance, many algorithms have been developed to solve practical, and often case-specific versions of the NSP. The enormous amount of different constraints has led to an overwhelming amount of exact and meta-heuristic procedures, and hence comparison and state-of-the-art reporting of standard results seem to be a utopian idea. The contribution of this paper is twofold. First, we present a meta-heuristic procedure for the NSP based on the framework proposed by Birbil and Fang (2003). The Electromagnetic (EM) approach is based on the theory of physics, and simulates attraction and repulsion of sample points in order to move towards a promising solution. Second, we present computational experiments on a standard benchmark dataset, and solve problem instances under different assumptions. We show that our procedure performs consistently well under many different circumstances, and hence, can be considered as robust against case-specific constraints. Keywords: meta-heuristics, electromagnetism, nurse scheduling
    Keyword
    Programme & Portfolio Management
    Knowledge Domain/Industry
    Operations & Supply Chain Management
    URI
    http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12127/1876
    Collections
    Research Communication

    entitlement

     
    DSpace software (copyright © 2002 - 2023)  DuraSpace
    Quick Guide | Contact Us
    Open Repository is a service operated by 
    Atmire NV
     

    Export search results

    The export option will allow you to export the current search results of the entered query to a file. Different formats are available for download. To export the items, click on the button corresponding with the preferred download format.

    By default, clicking on the export buttons will result in a download of the allowed maximum amount of items.

    To select a subset of the search results, click "Selective Export" button and make a selection of the items you want to export. The amount of items that can be exported at once is similarly restricted as the full export.

    After making a selection, click one of the export format buttons. The amount of items that will be exported is indicated in the bubble next to export format.