Se. Sampson et En. Weiss, INCREASING SERVICE LEVELS IN CONFERENCE AND EDUCATIONAL SCHEDULING - A HEURISTIC APPROACH, Management science, 41(11), 1995, pp. 1816-1825
Citations number
40
Categorie Soggetti
Management,"Operatione Research & Management Science
This paper explores a technique for developing a conference (or class)
schedule that maximizes the servicing of participant requests for ses
sions. Data regarding participant interests are collected before the t
ime the schedule is generated. The problem contains two principal part
s: (1) to feasibly assign session offerings to time periods and rooms,
and (2) to assign participants to sections of multiple-offering sessi
ons. A heuristic procedure that simultaneously solves both parts is de
scribed and tested. The procedure considers not only the participants'
requests for sessions, but also the relative importance of the variou
s requests. Benefits of request prioritization are described. Results
show that this approach can result in significantly improved participa
nt satisfaction and equity when compared with traditional conference-
and class-scheduling approaches.