Patent ID: 11948106
Assignee: WORKDAY, INC.
Field: IT methods for management (Electrical engineering)
Classification: CPC G | IPC G

Claim 19:
20. A method for shift design and assignment, comprising:
receiving, via a user interface for adjusting a relative importance of one or more penalty cost terms, an initial relative importance of the one or more penalty cost terms;
generating a set of shift candidates based on labor demand data;
determining, using a processor, a set of decision variables representing whether a particular shift candidate is selected in a final schedule and whether a particular worker is assigned to the particular shift candidate;
determining a set of constraints based at least in part on the set of decision variables, the set of shift candidates, the labor demand data, the initial relative importance of the one or more penalty cost terms, and scheduling configuration data, wherein determining the set of constraints includes the processor executing steps for:
receiving a nonlinear expression corresponding to a constraint of the set of constraints;
determining a supplemental decision variable not included in the set of decision variables;
converting the nonlinear expression into a set of one or more supplemental linear expressions, wherein at least one supplemental linear expression of the set of one or more linear expressions comprises the supplemental decision variable; and
including the set of one or more supplemental linear expressions in the set of constraints;

determining simultaneously, using a Mixed Integer Programming (MIP) solver based at least in part on the set of constraints, a subset of the shift candidates selected in the final schedule and a set of shift assignments of which worker is assigned to which selected shift candidate of the subset of the shift candidates, wherein the determining includes the processor iteratively invoking the MIP solver to relax constraints based at least in part on attributes of the set of constraints and the initial relative importance of the one or more penalty cost terms corresponding to one or more constraints of the set of constraints;
receiving, via the interface, an adjusted relative importance of the one or more penalty cost terms, wherein receiving the adjusted relative importance of the one or more penalty cost terms causes the processor to generate a redetermined set of constraints; and
determining an adjusted final schedule and an adjusted set of assignments by the processor iteratively invoking the MIP solver to relax constraints based at least in part on the attributes of the set of constraints and the adjusted relative importance of the one or more penalty cost terms corresponding to the one or more constraints of the redetermined set of constraints.