Modelling issues in nurse rostering

The real world nurse rostering problem requires numerous extensions to the nurse rostering models reported in the literature. In this work, we present some issues in nurse rostering model and illustrate them with specific examples. The extensions to our previous model [1] are inspired by the cases collected during collaboration with an industrial partner (GPS Time Security NV). De Causmaecker and Vanden Berghe have categorised the nurse rostering problems regarding to the personnel environment, work characteristics, and optimisation objectives [2,3]. The skill type is an element of the personnel environment in this categorisation. Although there are several categories regarding the treatment of skill types, we report the most complicated one in this abstract. In some wards, employees can have multiple skill types and different levels of experience for each skill type. Consider a senior regular nurse who is a trainee as a head nurse. She has two skill types: regular and head nurse, but different levels of experience for each of them: senior and trainee. In this type of problems, the minimum level of experience is also given in the coverage constraints. Domain. Domain is a new modelling element used in the definition of constraints. The composition of a domain object is as follows: – Date set – Handling of the date set: individual or complete – Shift type set This research project is funded by IWT (Institute for the Promotion of Innovation by Science and Technology in Flanders) within the project IWT 080356 GPS Plan. 1 Combinatorial Optimisation and Decision Support (CODeS) Department of Information Technology, KaHo Sint Lieven {Burak.Bilgin, Greet.Vandenberghe}@kahosl.be 2 Combinatorial Optimisation and Decision Support (CODeS) Department of Computer Science, KUL@K, K.U.Leuven Patrick.DeCausmaecker@kuleuven-kortrijk.be 3 Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Department of Computer Science and Information Technology