Research Overview: Scheduling

Yes, we have to divide up our time like that, between our politics and our equations. But to me our equations are far more important, for politics are only a matter of present concern. A mathematical equation stands forever.
- Albert Einstein

I own and run a small company called Apex Optimization with Kristian Nolde. Apex is a custom optimization house that focuses on solving problems and reducing inefficiencies faced by mid- to large-sized corporations. Our first contract is on human resource scheduling in which we use optimal scheduling to satisfy all employee demands and regulations while simultaneously tracking predicted customer frequency throughout the day (i.e. number of salesmen = number of customers). The goal is to reduce overtime demand and improve customer service, without sacrificing employee needs.

We have implemented an interactive web system in which store managers can organize their employees and compute optimal schedules. This system (the Apex Scheduler) is currently scheduling more than 50 stores for a major Swiss retailer.

We are interested in improving the techniques that we have developed and are looking into the areas of robust scheduling and stochastic mixed-integer programming.