Patent ID: 7962356

Claim:
A method of causing a particular computer system to create a deployment plan for staff members with single or multiple qualifications for performing activities, each activity requiring at least a single qualification, the method comprising: repeatedly generating, by a processor associated with the particular computer system, a deployment plan assignment of the staff members, and assessing a quality of the assignment generated regarding the state of coverage of activities by using a target function, using, by a processor associated with the particular computer system, one of the assignments on the basis of the assessment of the quality as the assignment representing the deployment plan, wherein the target function comprises a normal-activity term: ( R A N ⁡ ( t ) - S A N ⁡ ( t ) R A N ⁡ ( t ) ) 2 and a multi-activity term: ( R MA ⁡ ( t ) - BOC MA ⁡ ( t ) R MA ⁡ ( t ) ) 2 wherein the normal-activity term and the multi-activity term are combined to form the target function as follows: ∑ t ⁢ ⁢ ( ∑ A N ⁢ ⁢ ( R A N ⁡ ( t ) - S A N ⁡ ( t ) R A N ⁡ ( t ) ) 2 + ( R MA ⁡ ( t ) - BOC MA ⁡ ( t ) R MA ⁡ ( t ) ) 2 ) , wherein a longer time interval of the deployment plan assignment is divided into shorter time intervals t, where A N refers to a normal activity, R A N (t) is the staff member requirement for a normal activity and S A N (t) is the number of staff members that have been scheduled to the activity A N , MA refers to a multi-activity which is a thought bundling of activities to which staff members with single or multiple qualifications are assigned, R MA (t) is the staff member requirement for the multi-activity MA under the assumption that each of the staff members deployed to the multi-activity MA is qualified for all the activities of the multi-activity MA due to his/her multiple qualification, and BOC MA (t) is the number of staff members that have been scheduled at the point of time t to the multi-activity MA or to an activity of the multi-activity MA, and maximizing the coverage of activities by minimizing the target function.