An Application of Course Scheduling in the Brazilian Air Force

Abstract : The Air Force Institute of Logistics (ILA) in Brazil is responsible for executing the technical courses related to acquisition, supply, maintenance, and logistic functions for the Brazilian Air Force. These courses have an average duration of 2 weeks and a class size of approximately 30 students per course. The average number of courses per year is 34. In addition to these courses, the Institute also is responsible for organizing and executing seminars, meetings, lectures, and other unscheduled events. The Brazilian Air Force currently utilizes a manual process for course scheduling that is time consuming and does not even attempt to optimize the schedule. The result of this manual process is a solution that seems reasonable at best. Because of this, the final course schedule often results in conflicts with the unscheduled events, and also in the loss of quality due to the unavailability of resources to cover the courses and special events that occur at the same time. This work presents an approach to course scheduling that avoids these conflicts and allows better utilization of resources. This approach uses mathematical models and software to solve the timetabling problem and simulate various course scheduling scenarios to improve the overall quality of ILA's services.

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