Abstract
This paper illustrates how a modern heuristic and two classical integer programming models have been combined to provide a solution to a nurse rostering problem at a major UK hospital. Neither a heuristic nor an exact approach based on a standard IP package was able to meet all the practical requirements. This was overcome by using a variant of tabu search as the core method, but applying knapsack and network flow models in pre- and post-processing phases. The result is a successful software tool that frees senior nursing staff from a time consuming administrative task.
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Dowsland, K., Thompson, J. Solving a nurse scheduling problem with knapsacks, networks and tabu search. J Oper Res Soc 51, 825–833 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.jors.2600970
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.jors.2600970