Using OR-Tools When Solving the Nurse Scheduling Problem

Oliveira, Márcia; Rocha, Ana Maria A.C.; Alves, Filipe

http://hdl.handle.net/10198/30323

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Authors

Oliveira, Márcia

Rocha, Ana Maria A.C.

Alves, Filipe

Abstract(s)

Scheduling of employees is a common problem that can be found in most organizations all over the world. One example is the nurse scheduling problem (NSP), which is a complex combinatorial opti-mization problem faced by healthcare institutions in assigning working and nonworking days. The NSP comprises constraints for the nurses, for the hospital and considers specific labor regulations, aswell as the skills and preferences ofworkers. In summary, it involves hard and soft constraints. It is essential to create a quality timetable that can lead to a more contented and thus,more effec-tive and productiveworkforce. To improve this process, it can be used automated approaches and techniques. In this study, a litera-ture review about the nurse scheduling problem and how to use the Google OR-Tools software to solve it is performed. Moreover, an example of an NSP involving 10 nurses being assigned to three shifts a day, seven days a week is presented. Some condi-tions/constraints have been added in order to reproduce a real situation.

Keywords

Nurse scheduling problem Constrained optimization Google OR-Tools

URI

http://hdl.handle.net/10198/30323

Citation

Oliveira, Márcia; Rocha, Ana Maria A. C.; Alves, Filipe (2024). Using OR-Tools When Solving the Nurse Scheduling Problem. In 3rd International Conference on Optimization, Learning Algorithms and Applications (OL2A 2023). Cham: Springer Nature, Vol. 1, p. 438–449. ISBN 978-3-031-53024-1.