A dynamic service mechanic problem for a housing corporation

We study a dynamic service mechanic problem in which large maintenance activities, known already before the start of the planning period, and emergency incidents, arriving during the planning period, need to be served by the same pool of mechanics. Since not enough own mechanics are available to serve all jobs, the goal is to minimize total expected costs by timely assigning some of the activities to subcontractors. The developed model combines elements of stochastic programming and online optimization: a two-stage recourse model with a dynamic second stage in which a discrete event simulation is applied to generate decisions. A genetic algorithm is used to solve the entire model. Computational results are presented for randomly generated data sets.

[1]  David E. Goldberg,et al.  Genetic Algorithms in Search Optimization and Machine Learning , 1988 .

[2]  Maarten H. van der Vlerk,et al.  A dynamic day-ahead paratransit planning problem , 2007 .

[3]  Steve Y. Chiu,et al.  Effective Heuristic Procedures for a Field Technician Scheduling Problem , 2001, J. Heuristics.

[4]  Jacques Renaud,et al.  A heuristic for the routing and carrier selection problem , 2007, Eur. J. Oper. Res..

[5]  R. Wets,et al.  Stochastic programming , 1989 .

[6]  Susanne Albers,et al.  Online algorithms: a survey , 2003, Math. Program..

[7]  Stuart Johns.  Heuristics to Schedule Service Engineers within Time Windows , 1995 .

[8]  Ching-Wu Chu,et al.  A heuristic algorithm for the truckload and less-than-truckload problem , 2005, Eur. J. Oper. Res..

[9]  Peter Kall,et al.  Stochastic Programming , 1995 .

[10]  Oli B. G. Madsen,et al.  A heuristic method for dispatching repair men , 1995, Ann. Oper. Res..

[11]  Milind Dawande,et al.  Approximation Algorithms for the Multiple Knapsack Problem with Assignment Restrictions , 2000, J. Comb. Optim..

[12]  M. I. Henig,et al.  Reservation planning for elective surgery under uncertain demand for emergency surgery , 1996 .

[13]  Maarten H. van der Vlerk,et al.  A two-stage model for a day-ahead paratransit planning problem , 2006, Math. Methods Oper. Res..

[14]  Antonio Alonso Ayuso,et al.  Introduction to Stochastic Programming , 2009 .

[15]  F. Glover,et al.  In Modern Heuristic Techniques for Combinatorial Problems , 1993 .

[16]  John H. Holland,et al.  Adaptation in Natural and Artificial Systems: An Introductory Analysis with Applications to Biology, Control, and Artificial Intelligence , 1992 .

[17]  Martin W. P. Savelsbergh,et al.  Decision Support for Consumer Direct Grocery Initiatives , 2005, Transp. Sci..