1. ¹HEC Montréal, Montréal, Canada
2. ²École Polytechnique de Montréal, Montréal, Canada

Correspondence: G Laporte, HEC Montréal, 3000 chemin de la Côte-Sainte-Catherine, Montréal, Canada H3T 2A7. E-mail: gilbert@crt.umontreal.ca

Received August 2003; Accepted April 2004; Published online 14 July 2004.

Abstract

Rotating work schedules are encountered in several industries and public sector organizations where work is carried out 24 h a day, 7 days a week. This article first provides a classification of the main constraint classes governing the design of rotating schedules. A novel constraint programming algorithm is then developed that can handle a wider variety of constraints than other algorithms from the literature. Computational results on several real-life examples confirm the efficiency and robustness of the proposed approach.