This provides opportunities for research into how hard and soft methods may be profitably linked. The goal here would be to extend the existing models and solution techniques in the literature for solving complex, realistic timetabling problems. In the 'primal' approach to solving Integer Programs to optimality, one proceeds from one feasible solution to a better one, until no further improvement is possible. Queue Modelling for Call Centres with Dave Worthington Call centres are a growth industry with workloads that change as new contracts are agreed, and also vary stochastically within any contract. Queuing models are currently used to help match staffing levels and queue management techniques to workloads, but are often based on old and inadequate formulae.
Research is needed to develop and evaluate more appropriate methods.
Many real queues exhibit important time-dependent behaviour, e.g. major peaks and troughs in their arrival rates. Research is needed to extend the DTM approach to more complex systems, for example networks of queues, priority queues, and queues with state-dependent arrival rates. Scheduling in the Process Industries with Brian Kingsman Scheduling in process industries presents different problems to those of standard batch production industries and has received less attention in the academic literature. There is scope for improved modelling and solution methods for these problems. Brian Kingsman A range of methods has been proposed for both scheduling and production planning.