Patent ID: 7840435

Claim:
A computer-implemented method for generating a schedule for security workers, comprising: receiving a performance measure as an input to a computer; forecasting, by the computer, a demand for a security checkpoint for a site for a plurality of time intervals, wherein forecasting the demand comprises: determining a preliminary demand for the security checkpoint based on a total number of users of the site; and adjusting the preliminary demand to determine actual forecasted demand for the security checkpoint based on a reduction in demand caused by users expected to use the site without passing through the checkpoint; modeling, by the computer, to forecast a needed number of stations in the security checkpoint for the time intervals to meet the forecasted demand and to achieve the performance measure, wherein the stations are each associated with at least one task; and wherein the modeling comprises: estimating an impact of modifying a first number of stations on achieving the performance measure, and selecting, by the computer and based on the estimated impact, the needed number of stations for each of the time intervals to meet the forecasted demand and to achieve the performance measure; and scheduling, by the computer, a number of workers for staffing the selected number of stations for each of the time intervals, wherein the scheduling further comprises: defining, by the computer, a preliminary number of workers for staffing the selected number of stations for each of the time intervals based on a first staff-to-station relationship between the workers and stations in the selected number of stations, and adjusting the preliminary number of workers to reflect a second and different staff-to-station relationship between the workers and two or more of the stations due to related tasks at the two or more of the stations.