A Two-Step Tabu Search Heuristic for Multi-period Multi-site Assignment Problem with Joint Requirement of Multiple Resource Types

Abstract

An assignment problem has been extensively studied and applied in many industries. Variations of assignment problem have been proposed and appeared in literatures for many years. This paper extends the variation of assignment problem in the dimension of task and resource by proposing the joint requirement of multiple resource types in a multi-period multi-site assignment problem. The specific characteristic is that there are many multi-skill resource types and tasks require joint requirement of more than one resource type to operate. An application of this model can be found in healthcare industry, especially in clinic networks or hospital networks, which have many service locations, have many resource types such as doctors, nurses or medical equipments and definitely require more than one resource type for operations. This paper proposes a two-step Tabu search heuristic for multi-period multi-site assignment problem with joint requirement of multiple resource types. The specified neighborhood strategy, short-term memory and long-term memory are designed for the addressed problem in order to generate an efficient move to improve solutions. From computational study, solutions from Tabu search algorithm are compared with optimal solutions from CPLEX, and the result shows that, for small size problems, most solutions are close to optimal solutions (average gap = 2.2%), for medium size problems, the algorithm can provide good solutions in a short time comparing with CPLEX (average gap = 5.8%), and for large size problem, four out of five solutions from the proposed algorithm are better than solutions from CPLEX in a limit of time.

The Multi-Skilled Resource-Constrained Project Scheduling Problem: A Systematic Review and an Exploration of Future Landscapes

“…In this section, we highlight the practical relevance of the MS-RCPSP and delve into how this problem has been applied across several industries to solve project scheduling challenges caused by resource limitations. Examples of such applications include construction [79,80], manufacturing [81,82], IT/software development [79,83], supply chain management [49] healthcare [72,84], oil and gas exploration [33], energy and nuclear power [28,74], and defense [85,86]. In the construction industry, which is grappling with resource limitations, several models and algorithms have been developed to address this challenge.…”

A two-phase method for operating room scheduling

“…Morales and Romeijn (2005) describe the state of the art. Tabu search metaheuristic is used by Swangnop and Chaovalitwongse (2014) and Mckendall et al (2015). Quick heuristic algorithms the assignment problem are described by Srivastava and Bullo (2014), Yuan et al (2014) and Topcuoglu et al (2014).…”

Joint Requirement of Two Multi-skill Resource Types in Multi-period Multi-site Assignment Problem

“…Resources can be assigned to only one site, and the objective of the model is to maximize the profit calculated from the benefit and the operation cost. The assignment model of Swangnop and Chaovalitwongse [28], which is a multi-period multi-site assignment problem with joint requirement of multiple resource types, can be adapted and applied to this problem. A mathematical model can be written as follows: …”

“…A problem of Costa Filho, Rivera Rocha et al [12] concerning human resource allocation was modelled as a constraint satisfaction problem and used a backtracking search algorithm to find the solution. Others developed algorithms based on the mataheuristic concept, for example, ant colony optimization [11], genetic algorithm [16,18,21], memetic approach [20] and tabu search algorithm [19,28]. The approach which is most related to the proposed problem is Tabu search algorithm of Swangnop and Chaovalitwongse [28].…”