Computers & Operations Research 40 (2013) 1023–1033

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Computers & Operations Research

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/caor

Integrated staffing and scheduling for an aircraft line

maintenance problem
Jeroen Beliën a,b,n, Erik Demeulemeester b, Philippe De Bruecker a,b, Jorne Van den
Bergh a,b, Brecht Cardoen b,c
a
Center for Informatics, Modelling and Simulation, Faculty of Economics and Management, Hogeschool-Universiteit Brussel, Warmoesberg 26, 1000 Brussels, Belgium
b
Research Center for Operations Management, Faculty of Business and Economics, KU Leuven, Belgium
c
Operations and Technology Management Center, Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School, Belgium

a r t i c l e i n f o abstract

Available online 19 November 2012 This paper studies the problem of constructing the workforce schedules of an aircraft maintenance
Keywords: company. The problem involves both a staffing and a scheduling decision. We propose an enumerative
Staffing algorithm with bounding in which each node of the enumeration tree represents a mixed integer linear
Scheduling problem (MILP). We reformulate the MILP such that it becomes tractable for commercial MILP solvers.
Aircraft line maintenance Extensive computational tests on 40 instances that are derived from a real-life setting indicate that the
Mixed integer programming algorithm is capable of finding close-to-optimal solutions.
& 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction in which a Mixed Integer Linear Problem (MILP) is solved for

This paper examines how to minimize the labor costs of an
aircraft maintenance company that stem from the provision of its
line maintenance programme. A line maintenance programme
represents the regular short inspections of aircraft between their
arrival and their departure at some specific airport. Two decisions
are of particular interest in minimizing labor costs. On the one
hand, one has to decide on the appropriate staffing levels that are
necessary to meet the demand of customers over time. On the other
hand, one has to determine an accurate rostering or scheduling that
translates the availability of the staff into an adequate shift
structure. Both decisions are examined in an integrated way while
considering numerous conditions that stem from imposed collec-
tive agreement requirements or coverage constraints.
In our problem, the coverage constraints are not specified per
time period, but per maintenance job. Taking into account a time
window for each job, our model decides on the timing (when) as
well as the execution mode (with how many persons) of each
maintenance job. The achievement of an integrated staffing and
scheduling system as formulated in this research paper is basi-
cally a non-linear problem. We propose an enumeration approach
n of these problem settings. In this paper, we investigate how a line
Corresponding author at: Center for Informatics, Modelling and Simulation,
Faculty of Economics and Management, Hogeschool-Universiteit Brussel, War-
moesberg 26, 1000 Brussels, Belgium. Tel.: þ32 02 6098271; fax: þ 32 16 326624.
E-mail addresses: jeroen.belien@hubrussel.be,
Jeroen.Belien@econ.kuleuven.be (J. Beliën),
erik.demeulemeester@econ.kuleuven.be (E. Demeulemeester),
philippe.debruecker@econ.kuleuven.be (P. De Bruecker),
jorne.vandenbergh@hubrussel.be (J. Van den Bergh),
brecht.cardoen@vlerick.be (B. Cardoen).
every combination of team sizes.
The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. Section 2
presents the related literature. In Section 3, we introduce the
problem setting and describe the objective and the specific set of
constraints that constitute the optimization problem. Section 4
elaborates on the developed solution approach, which first refor-
mulates the problem and then applies mathematical programming
within an enumerative search with bounding. We also describe a
tabu search algorithm, which is used to compare the results of the
enumerative algorithm with bounding. Section 5 reports on the
algorithmic performance of the solution approach. We conclude
this paper in Section 6 by recapitulating some interesting findings
and by addressing future extensions to the model.
2. Literature review
The literature provides an extensive amount of research on
airline staffing and scheduling problems, such as the flight schedul-
ing problem, the fleet assignment problem, the aircraft routing
problem, the crew scheduling problem and the crew bidding
problem. We refer to Mercier and Soumis [1] for a clear description
maintenance service company should determine its staffing and
scheduling decisions in order to minimize the resulting labor costs.
In the literature, decisions on aircraft maintenance are fre-
quently studied as part of the aircraft routing problem (see [2] for
a recent example) and integrated with other problems that
constitute the airline scheduling problem. This paper studies
maintenance from the viewpoint of a maintenance company that

0305-0548/$ - see front matter & 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cor.2012.11.011
1024 J. Beliën et al. / Computers & Operations Research 40 (2013) 1023–1033
serves multiple, competing airlines. This implies that decisions on
the spread of workload cannot be changed by adapting the routing
decisions, which are pre-determined by the airlines. Besides this
particular setting, this paper focuses on staffing and scheduling
decisions concerning the line maintenance programme, which is a
maintenance aspect that has rarely been studied up to now. Line
maintenance includes regular short inspections of the aircraft
between arrival and departure at an airport [3]. Yang et al. [4]
aim at minimizing the total line maintenance manpower supply,
taking flexible management strategies into account. These strate-
gies relate to numerical and temporal flexibility. They allow one to
decide on team sizes, the number of shifts needed and their starting
times. They furthermore distinguish between full-time shifts and
part-time shifts. They formulate their problem using a mixed
integer programming approach and apply the model to a case
study. Yang et al. [5] elaborate on the previous model by adding
constraints concerning certification (i.e., the degree of training and
functional abilities) of the maintenance personnel. Gupta et al. [3]
formulate a simulation-based optimization approach to minimize
the total number of technicians working overtime by adapting the
applied shift structure. Particular interest was given to the utiliza-
tion of the technicians, as well as the amount of workload that had
to be passed on to the next shift.
Although some of the above references integrate staffing and
scheduling decisions in their problem setting, it should be noted that
these decisions are frequently considered as two separate problems
(see [6] or [7] for examples). In a first phase, the staffing problem is
solved, which results in workforce sizes. The decision problem of
workforce staffing, also called manpower planning, applies to a longer
time horizon.
In the scheduling phase, one assigns shifts to individuals
taking into account specific restrictions like, amongst others, shift
succession constraints, limits on the total hours worked and
individual shift preferences. These constraints, sometimes
referred to as collective agreement requirements, are typical for
services involving around-the-clock workforce scheduling (see,
e.g., [8] for an example of these constraints in a nurse scheduling
problem). An exact methodology often used for workforce sche-
duling is MILP (e.g., [9]). MILP software solves combinatorial
problems through a branch-and-bound enumeration framework
with bounding based on LP relaxations. In recent work, branch-
and-price, often referred to as Integer Programming (IP) column
generation, has proven to be a promising methodology for
problems of moderate size. In this approach, the problem is
formulated using the concept of individual rosters. An individual
roster is a particular sequence of shifts and days-off and corre-
sponds to an integer decision variable (a column) in a master IP
model. The main advantage of this approach is that the LP
relaxation of a ‘column-based’ formulation is often much stronger
than a formulation in which a 0–1 decision variable decides on
assigning a particular shift to a particular staff member. More-
over, all the restrictions that apply at the individual level (like
shift succession constraints) are addressed in the column genera-
tion phase. The fact that a ‘column-based’ formulation might
involve an exponential number of variables is addressed in the
column generation process by only generating those variables
needed to prove LP optimality of a certain node in the branch-
and-bound tree. Successful branch-and-price approaches for
nurse scheduling applications are presented by Maenhout and
Vanhoucke [10] and Purnomo and Bard [11]. In our problem,
however, shifts are assigned to teams in cycles instead of
individuals. One option would be to decompose the problem
based on these cycles and generate columns per cycle. A feasible
column is then a feasible succession of shifts in a cycle. The
non-linear aspect (determining team sizes and the number of
weeks per cycle), however, remains a problem. Therefore, branch-
and-price is not a promising solution approach for the problem
setting of this paper.
Nevertheless, workforce scheduling problems of realistic
dimensions can hardly ever be solved to optimality within a
reasonable computation time (see, e.g., [12] who conclude this
fact after reviewing the literature on nurse rostering). Metaheur-
istic approaches have proven to be more efficient with respect to
finding an acceptable solution in limited computation time. The
main drawback of metaheuristics, however, is that no guarantee
or even information can be given on the quality of the solution.
Examples of metaheuristic approaches for workforce scheduling
problems can be found in Safaei et al. [13] (simulated annealing),
Burke et al. [14] (tabu search) and Aickelin and Dowsland [15]
(genetic algorithms).
Sometimes, the staffing and scheduling problem is solved at
the same time. This entails interesting opportunities, as a solution
to the staffing problem has a serious impact on the scheduling
problem. A model that integrates the staffing and the scheduling
problem takes advantage of this dependency. Beliën and Demeu-
lemeester [16] present a branch-and-price approach to integrate
the nurse and master surgery scheduling process. Column gen-
eration is used for generating both individual nurse rosters and
favorable workload patterns. As a workload pattern corresponds
to a specific surgery schedule, the search for a new workload
pattern entails constructing a new surgery schedule. Qi and Bard
[17] use a two-stage simulation model to generate labor require-
ments and rosters for mail handlers. In the first decision support
system, the daily equipment schedules are optimized and the
second is designed to optimize the size and composition of the
permanent workforce. The simulation model serves as a bridge
between the two optimization systems which are modeled as
large-scale integer programs. A successful airline scheduling
integration example is provided by Weide et al. [18], who show
that integrating the crew pairing process with a higher level of
decision-making, i.e., aircraft routing, can be both effective and
computationally tractable.
In the introduction, we mentioned that in our problem
decisions need to be taken on the timing (when) as well as the
execution mode (with how many persons) of each maintenance
job. In the literature, this specific type of jobs is referred to as
‘malleable’, ‘multiprocessor’, ‘concurrent’ or ‘parallel’ jobs. Burke
et al. [19] define malleable tasks as tasks that may be processed
simultaneously by several processors, where the processing speed
of a task is dependent upon the number or the subset of
processors used. A review on the literature on scheduling this
type of jobs can be found in Drozdowski [20]. Most applications
can be found in computer science, since parallel processing can
lead to a significant increase in computing speed (see [21]), but
applications also occur in other scheduling problems such as
refueling navy boats [22] or workforce scheduling [23]. To
describe the relation between the execution time of a task and
the number of allowed processors, different models are used
([20]), such as an arbitrary discrete or continuous function, an
inversely proportional function, an inversely proportional func-
tion up to a certain number of processors, etc. In our problem
setting, the execution time of a task is exactly inversely propor-
tional to the number of workers assigned to that task (e.g., a
workload of one person-hour takes 1 h with one person or one
quarter with four persons).
3. Problem setting
In this section, we present the line maintenance workforce
scheduling problem. We begin with an explanation of how the
work is organized, clearly describing the concepts of cycles, teams
 J. Beliën et al. / Computers & Operations Research 40 (2013) 1023–1033 1025

Fig. 1. Illustrating a schedule (a) and the translation of the short notation of cycle 1 to shifts and teams (b).

and weeks, and the relations between them. Then, we present a
first, intuitive formulation of the problem. Next, we reformulate
the problem in such a way that it exploits certain problem
characteristics and, consequently, becomes tractable for commer-
cial solvers.
3 weeks) each team has worked all shifts in the roster and restarts
working the same sequence of shifts. In other words, the set of
shifts that is delivered in each week of the cycle is the same. The
team that will carry out a specific shift sequence, however, will
differ.

3.1. Cycles, teams and shifts

3.2. Problem formulation
The line maintenance scheduling problem consists of a staffing
Starting from a given number of cycles, we have to determine
decision and a rostering decision. As mentioned earlier, shifts are
the number of weeks (¼teams) for each cycle, the size (number of
assigned to teams in cycles instead of individuals in our problem.
full time employees) in each team, and the roster in each cycle. A
The staffing decision entails the determination of the team sizes,
roster is defined by a sequence of shifts in each week of the cycle,
while the rostering decision concerns the definition and timing of
which includes a definition of these shifts (starting hours,
the shifts. A workforce schedule is in fact the result of the
durations).
combination of multiple subschedules, called cycles. Each cycle
First, we present the symbols we will use. We begin by listing
is defined by its team size, number of weeks, shift definitions and
the sets, along with the indices associated with each set.
shift sequence. Teams may vary in size, depending on the cycle
they are working in. Within a cycle, however, all teams should 0
i,i A I : feasible shifts
have equal team sizes. A cycle can be seen as a number of t AT : shift types fM,D,E,Ng
consecutive weeks. The number of weeks in a cycle is equal to i A It : feasible shifts of shift type t
the number of teams to whom the cycle applies. The number of c A C: cycles in the schedule
weeks in a cycle is also equal to the number of shift sequences w A W: weeks
that can be fulfilled by the teams working in the cycle. In one d A f1,2, . . . ,7g: days in the week
particular week, each team of the cycle will execute one specific p A P: time periods in one week
shift sequence. Fig. 1 illustrates the above reasoning and the f A F: flights to be serviced
decisions that have to be made. f A Fp: flights that are available to be serviced during
In Fig. 1(a) a schedule is depicted that consists of two cycles. time period p
For each cycle, the team size, shift definitions and roster are p A Pf : time periods during which flight f can be
presented. Each row in a roster represents a shift sequence and serviced,
each column denotes a day of the week (Monday till Sunday). In i.e., Pf ¼ fp9STAf r p rSTDf g with STAf
the example, we differentiate between a morning shift (M), a day
(STDf) the Scheduled Time of Arrival
shift (D), an evening shift (E) and a night shift (N). Note that the (Departure) of flight f
exact starting time and finishing time of such a shift type may
differ between cycles. The transition from Fig. 1(a,b) illustrates
that the short notation actually captures all the information The constraints on the total duration and feasible starting
needed to write out the cycle (i.e., cycle 1) in full. This cycle hours of the different shift types are not explicitly added to our
consists of 3 weeks, and thus of three teams. It should be clear model. Instead, these constraints are incorporated implicitly in
that team 1 will carry out shift sequence 1 in week 1, that team the definition of our shifts iA I. The sets It only include those shifts
2 will carry out shift sequence 2 in week 1 and that team 3 will that satisfy all the starting hour and duration requirements for
carry out shift sequence 3 in week 1. In its second week, team shift type t. For example, a morning (M) shift must start between
1 will carry out shift sequence 2, team 2 will carry out shift 5 am and 6.30 am and its duration hi must lie between 7.5 hours
sequence 3, etc. Consequently, after the cycle time (in this case, and 8.5 hours.
1026 J. Beliën et al. / Computers & Operations Research 40 (2013) 1023–1033

Observe that we use a discretized time horizon P, consisting of model:

time periods p. For each period p, we will calculate the workload, minimize
which is a function of the maintenance jobs scheduled in this XX X
7 X
period, as well as the scheduled capacity, which is a function of kid mc xidwc ð1Þ
the scheduled shifts that cover a particular time period. Next, we cAC iAI d ¼ 1 wAW
state the coefficients and right hand side constants. subject to
X
kid: the total cost (for one worker) of shift i on day d xidwc r 1 8d ¼ 1, . . . ,7, 8w A W, 8c A C ð2Þ
hi: the duration of shift i (in hours) iAI
aidp: ¼1 if period p is included in shift i on day d; ¼0 X
otherwise w xidwc r nc 8d ¼ 1, . . . ,7, 8w A W, 8c A C ð3Þ
iAI
bidp: fraction of workers available to work in shift period p
when assigned shift i on day d ( o 1 during lunch hour) X
xidwc r vwc 8d ¼ 6,7, 8w A W, 8c A C ð4Þ
Lf: the workload (in person-hours) of flight f
iAI
Wl: the minimal number of weeks ( ¼teams) in a cycle
X
Wu: the maximal number of weeks ( ¼teams) in a cycle vwc r Rnc 8c A C ð5Þ
Ml: the minimal team size (number of employees in a team) wAW
Mu: the maximal team size (number of employees in a team)
S: the minimum average number of working hours per XX
7 X
hi xidwc ZSnc 8c A C ð6Þ
week iAI d ¼ 1 wAW
U: the maximum average number of working hours per
week XX
7 X
R: the maximum fraction of working weekends (i.e., hi xidwc rUnc 8c A C ð7Þ
iAI d ¼ 1 wAW
weekends during which at least one shift is scheduled)
xidwc rzic 8iA I, 8d ¼ 1, . . . ,7, 8w A W, 8c A C ð8Þ
The decision variables are: X
zic r1 8t A T, 8c A C ð9Þ
nc A fW l ,W l þ 1, . . . ,W u g: the number of weeks ( ¼teams) in i A It

cycle c
XX
7 X X
mc A fM l ,Ml þ 1, . . . ,Mu g: the team size in cycle c aidp xidwc Z1 8p A P ð10Þ
xidwc A f0,1g: ¼1 if shift i is scheduled during day d iAI d ¼ 1 wAW cAC
of week w in cycle c and 0 otherwise
zic A f0,1g: ¼1 if shift i is used in cycle c and XX
7 X X X
bidp mc xidwc Z yfp 8p A P ð11Þ
0 otherwise iAI d ¼ 1 wAW cAC f A Fp
vwc A f0,1g: ¼1 if week (row) w of cycle c is a
working X 9P9
weekend; i.e., if a shift is scheduled yfp ¼ Lf n 8f A F ð12Þ
p A Pf
24n7
in the
weekend of week w in cycle c; X
xiðd þ 1Þwc r 1 xi0 dwc 8i A IM [ ID [ IE , 8d ¼ 1, . . . ,7, 8w AW, 8c A C
0 otherwise
i0 A IN
yfp Z 0: the number of workers assigned to
ð13Þ
maintain flight f during time period p
X
xi1ðw þ 1Þc r 1 xi0 7wc , 8i A IM [ ID [ IE , 8w A f1,2, . . . ,W u 1g, 8c A C
i0 A IN
The integer variable nc defines the number of weeks in each
ð14Þ
cycle c, while the integer variable mc represents the team size
( ¼the number of workers) in cycle c. The binary variable xidwc is X
xiðd þ 1Þwc r 1 xi0 dwc 8i A IM [ ID , 8d ¼ 1, . . . ,6, 8w A W, 8c A C
the basic decision variable. This variable defines the roster in each i0 A I E
cycle c, i.e., it decides which shift is selected for each day in each
ð15Þ
week of the cycle. The binary variables zic and vwc are auxiliary
X
variables required to formulate the restriction of only one shift xi1ðw þ 1Þc r 1 xi0 7wc 8i A IM [ ID , 8w A f1,2, . . . ,W u 1g, 8c A C
definition of each shift type (M, D, E and N) per cycle and the i0 A IE
weekend constraint respectively. ð16Þ
The continuous variable yfp is used in the coverage constraints
to model the timing and execution mode of each flight’s main- xidwc A f0,1g 8i A I, 8d ¼ 1, . . . ,7, 8wA W, 8c A C ð17Þ
tenance job. This variable is not required to be an integer, as the
number of workers assigned during a time period might be yfp Z 0 8f A F, 8p A P ð18Þ
fractional. E.g., if 2.5 workers are assigned to a particular flight,
then two workers spend the whole time period maintaining this zic A f0,1g 8i A I, 8c A C ð19Þ
flight, while a third worker spends half of the time period on this
flight. nc A fW l ,W l þ1, . . . ,W u g 8c A C ð20Þ

mc A fM l ,M l þ1, . . . ,M u g 8c A C ð21Þ
3.3. Basic MINLP formulation
vwc A f0,1g 8w A W, 8c A C ð22Þ
The line maintenance workforce scheduling problem can be The objective function (1) minimizes the total costs. The cost
stated as a Mixed Integer Non-Linear Programming (MINLP) of a shift kid depends on the duration of shift i, on the shift type of
 J. Beliën et al. / Computers & Operations Research 40 (2013) 1023–1033
shift i (night shifts are typically the most expensive shifts, day
shifts are the cheapest) and on the day of the week (weekend days
are typically more expensive than week days).
Constraint set (2) guarantees that at most one shift is assigned
per day. Constraint set (3) ensures that a shift cannot be
scheduled in a week w higher than the number of weeks
( ¼teams ¼nc) in the cycle.
Constraint sets (4) and (5) guarantee that workers have a minimal
number of weekends off, by limiting the number of shifts scheduled
on Saturdays and Sundays. The number of working weekends, which
are identified by constraint set (4) can be at most the weekend
fraction multiplied by the number of weeks in the cycle (constraint
set (5)). For instance, if the weekend fraction equals 0.67, i.e., at least
one weekend out of three must be a free weekend.
Constraint sets (6) and (7) make sure that the average number
of working hours per week per worker lies within a specified
interval. Note that the constraint applies to the average.
Hence, there might be weeks in which the number of working
hours is larger than the upper bound or smaller than the
lower bound.
Constraint sets (8) and (9) guarantee that all M (D, E, N) shifts
have the same hours within one cycle. Note that shift i is defined
by a starting and finishing hour. If a particular shift i is scheduled
once or several times, constraint (8) makes the corresponding zic
equal to one. Next, constraint (9) ensures that no more than one
zic per shift type can equal one within each cycle. The result is that
all workers within a certain cycle have the same hours for an M
(D, E, N) shift. The reason for this restriction is that it substantially
simplifies the daily control of the workforce as the operational
scheduler, who assigns specific flights to (teams of) workers, faces
a limited number of shift times.
Constraint sets (10)–(12) are the coverage constraints. Con-
straint set (10) ensures that, in every period, at least one team is
present in order to take care of flights with disrupted schedules.
Constraint set (11) makes sure that the capacity, i.e., workers
present, exceeds the demand, i.e., the planned maintenance in
every period. The left-hand side calculates the capacity in each
time period. The right hand side calculates the demand. There is a
certain flexibility with respect to the timing and execution mode
of each flight’s maintenance. In other words, one can decide with
how many workers and when a particular flight is maintained, as
long as this happens between the flight’s STA and STD. This
decision is incorporated by the continuous variables yfp, which
indicate the workload (in person-hours) of flight f performed in
period p (with STAf r p r STDf ). The capacity must exceed the
demand in each period p of the week. The parameter bidp
decreases the capacity in the periods p that are reserved for lunch
breaks in shift i. Constraint set (12) guarantees that each flight is
maintained. Observe that, in order to calculate the workload in
person-periods, we have to multiply the workload (expressed in
person-hours) by the number of periods per hour ( ¼the total
number of periods per week ( ¼9P9) divided by the total hours per
week (¼ 24*7)).
Constraint sets (13)–(16) define the shift succession con-
straints. These constraints ensure a minimal number of hours
rest between two successive shifts. Given the feasible starting
hours and durations of the different shift types, constraint sets
(13) and (14) forbid a night (N) shift to be followed by a morning
(M), day (D) or evening (E) shift on the next day. Constraint sets
(15) and (16) forbid an evening (E) shift to be followed by a
morning (M) or a day (D) shift on the next day.
Finally, constraints (17)–(12) define the domains of the deci-
sion variables.
Note that MINLP (1)–(22) is non-linear in the objective func-
tion (1) and constraint set (11) which both involve a multi-
plication of the decision variables xidwc and mc.
1027
Theorem 3.1. By reduction to a set covering problem, we can show
that the line maintenance workforce scheduling problem is NP-hard.
Proof. Consider, for instance, the example where we have to
schedule the shifts for 1 cycle and 1 week. Therefore, we can
remove the indices c and w. Constraint set (3) is only valid for d r 5
since no weekend shifts can be assigned in a 1-week problem.
Therefore, constraint sets (4) and (5) can be removed. We now
group all the constraint sets except the coverage constraints
(10)–(12) to create possible shift patterns. In those patterns we
immediately integrate the team sizes and the parameter bidp. We
can use the parameter glp to indicate the number of workers that
are available during period p in pattern l. We now replace xid by xl in
the coverage constraints, to indicate whether pattern l is chosen or
not, and use the parameter glp instead of aidp. The resulting problem
is a set covering problem, which is proven to be NP-hard [24]. The
set covering problem is thus a special case of our problem setting,
which makes our problem NP-hard as well. &
4. Solution approach
In Section 4.1, we will remove the non-linearity in MINLP
(1)–(22) by fixing the team sizes mc and solve different MILPs in
an enumerative framework with bounding. Section 4.2 describes
how we reformulated the resulting MILPs in order to make them
computationally tractable by a commercial MILP solver. In Section
4.3 we briefly describe a tabu search algorithm, which was
implemented to compare the results of the enumerative MILP
with bounding.
4.1. An enumerative MILP algorithm with bounding
Incorporating a team size variable leads to a non-linear
objective function, as the scheduling variable xidc is multiplied
by the team size variable mc in order to calculate the total costs,
see (1). By fixing the number of workers in each team, mc, model
(1)–(22) is transformed into a linear model. The team sizes are
fixed in advance and thus left out of the optimization model. The
enumerative MILP algorithm, however, enumerates over all dif-
ferent combinations of team sizes.
To increase the chance of having sufficient people with the
right skills in each team, we set a lower bound of two for the team
size. The maximum possible team size was set at twelve to limit
the number of combinations during the enumeration algorithm.
This suits the request of the maintenance company we worked
with for not overloading the operational scheduler. We will only
generate schedules containing two cycles. This number has been
inspired by the real-life application in which two-cycle schedules
were requested.
In order to be able to generate solutions in acceptable computa-
tion time, our procedure spends most of its time on the ‘promising’
combinations of team sizes in each cycle using an enumeration
algorithm with bounding. We only call a combination ‘promising’,
when it could lead to a better solution than the current best one
(i.e., no infeasible combinations, worse solutions, nor stopped MILPs
because of bound comparisons). Each node in the enumeration tree
represents a specific combination of team sizes in each cycle. In
case of two cycles, the number of nodes to be evaluated equals
nðn þ 1Þ=2! ¼ Oðn2 Þ with n the possible number of team sizes (in
each cycle). Three cycles will lead to a complexity of Oðn3 Þ, etc.
Based on the upper and lower bounds on the team sizes defined
before (between 2 and 12; thus n¼11), the number of combina-
tions in our problem setting equals 66. Moreover, the MILPs in each
node are not solved to optimality, due to a limit on the computation
time. As a result, we obtain the enumeration algorithm with
1028 J. Beliën et al. / Computers & Operations Research 40 (2013) 1023–1033

bounding depicted in Algorithm 1. In this pseudocode, M is the so-

called ‘big M’, representing a very large number.

Algorithm 1. Enumeration algorithm with bounding.

INITIALIZATION
UB ’ M;
for all combinations do
LB_of_this_combination ’ 0; Fig. 2. (a) Example of the output of our approach for a cycle containing 5 weeks
end for (¼teams); all shifts are placed in the first 3 weeks, as only the number and type of
shifts on each day are determined; (b) the schedule that could be obtained after
MAIN STEP
distributing the shifts over the different weeks.
while (end criterion met ¼FALSE) do
for all combinations do
if (LB_of_this_combination o UB) then
cut-off value by a certain percentage, e.g., 5%. Since solving an
MILP_UB ’ UB;
individual MILP itself can be very time-consuming, a time limit
solve corresponding MILP;
has been set on each MILP. Note that the lower bound is saved
if (feasible solution found within
only for those combinations that are not solved to optimality
allowed_MILP_comp_time) then
within the available computation time. In order to save computa-
save solution;
tion time, the MILP solution status of these nodes is saved and
UB ’ MILP_objective_value;
loaded when the node is revisited later on in the search process.
end if
In all other cases (infeasible combination, optimal solution found,
if (MILP not solved to optimality within
MILP stopped because of bound comparisons), the lower bound of
allowed_MILP_comp_time) then
the combination is set to M, excluding the node from further
if (MILP_LB 4 LB_of_this_combination) then
search. When all the nodes have been explored a first time, the
LB_of_this_combination ’ MILP_LB;
overall lower bound is set to the minimum of all the nodes’ lower
end if
bounds, and the end criterion is checked. The end criterion can be
else
a computation time limit or an optimality gap (e.g., 5%) defined as
LB_of_this_combination ’ M;
the relative difference between the best found solution (UB) and
end if
the overall LB, i.e., ðUBLBÞ=LB.
end if
check end criterion
4.2. Reformulating the MILP
end for
{Detecting the overall LB}
Even with fixed team sizes mc, solving MILP problem (1)–(22)
LB ’ M;
to optimality for realistic problem dimensions requires a lot of
for all combinations do
computation time with a state-of-the-art MILP Solver like CPLEX&
if (LB_of_this_combination o LB) then
12.2. Recall that we have to solve this MILP for every combination
LB ’ LB_of_this_combination;
of team sizes in each cycle.
end if
The high computation times are caused by (1) the high
end for
number of variables with integrality constraints, leading to (too)
check end criterion;
many branches in the branch-and-bound tree; and (2) the shift
end while
succession constraints (13)–(16). We address both problems by
RETURN LB, UB, all saved solutions
replacing the binary variable xidwc by the integer variable xidc.
Thus, instead of assigning each shift to a particular day in a
particular week, we now limit our decision to the number of shifts
If the first combination results in a feasible solution within a on a particular day. Fig. 2(a) shows the output in terms of the new
time limit, the objective value of this solution is our first upper decision variable xidc, while Fig. 2(b) shows the output in terms of
bound. If, within the given time limit, no feasible solution is the old decision variable xidwc for the same problem instance.
found, the time limit is extended with the same amount of time. Note that the cycle of Fig. 2(b) could be constructed, by distribut-
This is done until either a feasible solution is found or infeasibility ing the shifts of Fig. 2(a) over the different weeks.
is proven. If infeasibility is proven, the next combination is The dimension of the binary decision variable, xidwc, which
considered until a feasible solution is detected, which will be equals 9I9n7nW u n9C9, represents the major part of variables with
used as a first upper bound. integrality constraints. For realistic sizes (I¼60, Wu ¼12, C¼2), this
Upon finding an initial upper bound, the algorithm starts with number equals 10,080. After replacing xidwc by xidc this number is
the enumerative search (see Algorithm 1) which involves a loop reduced by a factor Wu. In model (13)–(16), the xidwc variables can
through all combinations of team sizes in each cycle. For each easily be replaced by the xidc variables, except for the shift
combination, a MILP is solved. In order to avoid spending MILP succession constraints (13)–(16). Indeed, as the xidc variables do
time on combinations which cannot result in a better solution, not assign shifts to weeks, the shift successions are not determined,
each MILP is provided with the current upper bound. Conse- and, hence, cannot be subject to any restriction. However, even if
quently, whenever the MILP lower bound (which continuously we use xidc variables, we can guarantee feasible shift successions
increases during the MILP search) becomes larger than or equal to upon dividing the shifts over the weeks (i.e., when turning
this UB cut-off value, the MILP calculation stops and the algorithm Fig. 2(a) into Fig. 2(b)) by adding constraints that guarantee feasible
moves on to the next combination. Note also that because of this shift successions. Before stating these new shift succession con-
UB cut-off value, every time a MILP results in a feasible solution, straints, we introduce new auxiliary variables:
this solution will automatically be the best solution found so far,
and for this reason has to be saved. If we are interested in finding
þ
etdc A f0,1, . . . ,W u g: the number of extra weeks needed in
cycle c
several near-optimal solutions, we only have to increase the UB
 J. Beliën et al. / Computers & Operations Research 40 (2013) 1023–1033 1029

caused by shifts of type t (with t A fE,Ng) to schedule one or more days off. This requires an increase in nc
þ
on the preceding day. equal to eNdc , i.e., the difference (if positive) between the number
u
e
Ndc A f0,1, . . . ,W g:
the number of extra weeks needed in cycle c of N shifts on the considered day and the preceding day.
þ
caused by E shifts that can be compensated Constraint set (24) forces eNdc to obtain the correct value. In the
þ
by an excess in N shifts on the preceding example cycle above, eNdc will be forced to be larger than or equal
day. to 1, because there is one N shift on Monday, but no N shifts on
þ
Tuesday. The third term, eEdc , represents the extra number of
weeks required to compensate for a difference in E shifts on
We replace the shift succession constraints (13)–(16) by the consecutive days. Constraint set (25) forces eEdc þ
to obtain the
following constraints: correct value. An E shift can only be followed by an E or N shift (or
X
nc Z þ
xidc þ eNdc þ
þ eEdc 8d A f1, . . . ,7g, 8c A C ð23Þ no shift). Hence, extra weeks must be added to the cycle
iAI whenever the number of E shifts on the preceding day exceeds
þ
P
X X the number of E shifts on this day, i.e., eEðd Z i A IE xidc 
þ P þ 1Þc
eNðd þ 1Þc Z xidc  xiðd þ 1Þc , 8d A f1, . . . ,6g, 8c A C ð24Þ i A IE xiðd þ 1Þc . However, N shifts can also be used to compensate
i A IN i A IN for E shifts on the preceding day, provided that the N shifts are
X X not required to compensate for N shifts on the preceding day. To
þ
eEðd þ 1Þc Z xidc  xiðd þ 1Þc e
Nðd þ 1Þc 8d A f1, . . . ,6g, 8c A C ð25Þ see this, consider the following example:
i A IE i A IE

X X
Nðd þ 1Þc r
e þ
xiðd þ 1Þc  xidc þ eNðd þ 1Þc 8d A f1, . . . ,6g 8c A C
i A IN i A IN

ð26Þ
X X
þ
eN1c Z xi7c  xi1c 8c A C ð27Þ In this example, there are two E shifts on Monday, but only one
P P
i A IN i A IN E shift on Tuesday; thus, i A IE xi1c  i A IE xi2c ¼ 1. However, the

X X number of weeks (¼3) is clearly sufficient to construct a feasible

þ
eE1c Z xi7c  xi1c e
N1c 8c A C ð28Þ cycle, because the first E shift on Monday can be succeeded by the
i A IE i A IE second N shift on Tuesday. The variable e Nðd þ 1Þc incorporates the
X X excess in N shifts that can be used to compensate for E shifts on
N1c r
e þ
xi1c  xi7c þ eN1c 8c A C ð29Þ the preceding day. In this example, e N2c ¼ 1. This will be ensured
i A IN i A IN þ
by constraint set (26). The last term in these constraints, eNðd þ 1Þc
,
First, note that, if the number of weeks in the cycle, nc, is larger is required to avoid the right hand side to obtain a negative value.
P P P
than a certain value, it is always possible to distribute the shifts If x o i A IE xiðd þ 1Þc , then eNðd þ
will equal x
P i A IE idc 
þ 1Þc P P i A IE iðd þ 1Þc
over the weeks without violating the shift succession constraints.  i A IE xidc and eNðd þ 1Þc will equal 0. If i A IE xidc 4 i A IE xiðd þ 1Þc ,
P P þ
The following solution for a particular cycle makes this clear: then e Nðd þ 1Þc will Pequal i A IEPxiðd þ 1Þc  i A IE xidc and eNðd þ 1Þc
will
þ
equal 0. Finally, if i A IE xidc ¼ i A IE xiðd þ 1Þc , then both eNðd þ 1Þc
and
eNðd þ 1Þc will equal 0. These relations are ensured by both con-
straint sets (25) and (26). The constraint sets (27)–(29) model the
same as the constraint sets (24)–(26), but now for the transition
to a next week, i.e., from Sunday (day 7) to Monday (day 1).
The weekend constraints (4)–(5) are replaced by
In this solution, the number of weeks (rows) in the cycle, nc,
X
equals 3. It is not possible to construct a roster that is feasible nc Zd1=Ren xi6c , 8c A C ð30Þ
with respect to the shift succession constraints from Monday iAI
(first column) to Tuesday (second column), because an N shift
!
cannot be followed by a D (E or M) shift. This cycle roster can be X
þ þ
turned into a feasible solution as follows: nc Zd1=Ren xi7c þeN7c þeE7c , 8c A C ð31Þ
iAI

To ensure that at most Rn100% of the weekends contain shifts, the

In this case, the number of weeks, nc, has increased from 3 to 4,
making it possible to shift the D shift on Tuesday to the fourth
week of the cycle. Constraint set (23) forces nc to exceed the
minimal value (4 in the example) that guarantees a feasible
solution. This minimal value consists of the sum of three terms:
P þ þ
P
i A I xidc , eNdc , and eEdc . The first term, i A I xidc , is explained by the
fact that the number of weeks, nc, has to be larger than or equal to
the number of shifts scheduled on each day. Otherwise, the
number of weeks would not suffice to distribute all shifts over
the weeks. Note that in the example cycle above, the number of
weeks, nc ¼3, satisfies this condition, because the number of shifts
þ
scheduled on each day equals 3. The second term, eNdc
sates for the fact that an N shift on the preceding day can only be
followed by an N shift (or no shift). If the number of N shifts is
lower than the number of N shifts on the preceding day, we have
number of weeks nc must exceed d1=Re times the number of shifts
scheduled on Saturday. For instance, if three shifts are scheduled on
P
Saturday, i.e., if i A I xi6c ¼ 3, and if 50% of the weekends must be free
of any shift, i.e., if R¼0.5, then the number of weeks nc must be larger
than or equal to 6. For Sundays, we have a similar constraint, except
þ þ
for the extra terms eN7c and eE7c . The reason is that a Sunday shift can
only be placed in the same weekend as a Saturday shift if there is no
shift succession violation. Consider the following example:
In this example, we assume a weekend fraction R equal to 0.5.
, compen- Constraint (30) will force the number of weeks nc to be larger
than or equal to 6. With nc ¼6, employees will work a Saturday
shift in 3 out of 6 weekends. Constraint (31), however, will force
nc to be larger than or equal to 12, because the three shifts on
1030 J. Beliën et al. / Computers & Operations Research 40 (2013) 1023–1033
Sunday cannot be scheduled in the same weekends as the Satur-
day shifts as neither an N shift nor an E shift can be succeeded by
a D or M shift on the next day. Consequently, this schedule will
result in 6 weekends containing each 1 shift (3 weekends a
Saturday shift, and 3 weekends a Sunday shift). If one is allowed
to work only 50% of the weekends, the number of weeks nc must
þ þ
be at least 12. In this example, eN7c ¼ 2 and eE7c ¼ 1.
From the original model (1)–(22), the constraints (13)–(16) are
replaced by the constraints (23)–(29) and the constraints (4)–(5)
are replaced by the constraints (30)–(31). Since we no longer use
the binary variable xidwc, constraint (2) can be removed from the
model. Note that constraint (13) automatically satisfies (3) and,
thus, constraint (3) can be safely removed from the model as well.
In the objective function as well as the constraints (6)–(7) and
P
(10)–(11) we replace w A W xidwc by xidc. Constraint (8) is rewrit-
ten as follows:
xidc rW u zic 8i A I, 8d ¼ 1, . . . ,7, 8c A C
Since we have fixed the team size, mc can be replaced by Mc in
the objective function (1) and in constraint (11).
The domain definitions of (17) and (21)–(22) are replaced by
xidc A f0,1,2, . . . ,W u g 8i A I, 8d ¼ 1, . . . ,7, 8c A C
þ
etdc A f0,1, . . . ,W u g, t A fE,Ng, 8d ¼ 1, . . . ,7, 8c A C
u
e
Ndc A f0,1, . . . ,W g 8d ¼ 1, . . . ,7, 8c A C
As xidc is required to obtain an integer value, the constraints
þ
(24)–(29) ensure that etdc and eNdc obtain integer values as well.
Therefore, the domain definitions (34)–(35) can safely be relaxed
to:
0 r etdc
þ
rW u t A fE,Ng 8d ¼ 1, . . . ,7 8c A C
u airline maintenance company active at Brussels airport. This
0 r e
Ndc rW 8d ¼ 1, . . . ,7 8c A C
Thus, introducing the feasible shift succession guaranteeing con-
straints does not lead to extra integer variables in the MILP model.
All the other constraints remain unchanged.
4.3. Tabu search algorithm
To get an insight into the efficiency of the enumerative
algorithm with bounding, a tabu search (TS) algorithm was
developed. Due to restrictions on the length of the paper, we
only briefly describe the different phases of the algorithm. More
details can be found in De Bruecker [25].
During the TS, the algorithm focuses on two search spaces. The
feasible solution space consists of the combination of all possible
values of its decision variables for which the coverage ((10–12),
(18)) and union constraints are met. The union constraints are
those that limit the average number of working hours per week,
the succession and weekend constraints, as well as the con-
straints that ensure that the number of weeks in a cycle lies
between the two extrema. The infeasible space is equal to the
feasible one, except that it does allow for the relaxation of the
union constraints. Solutions where the coverage constraints are
not met, are not part of any search space.
The TS uses an initial solution based on a stochastic fastest
descent procedure. The main part of the TS consists of three
phases. In the first phase, the TS tries to bring the algorithm back
to the feasible search space. The infeasibility can be caused by the
relaxation of the union constraints during the initial fastest
descent algorithm or during the third phase. In phase 1, the degree
of infeasibility, which is the outcome of a continuous function,
modeled as a distance function to the nearest feasible solution, is
minimized. The search space starts exploring the neighborhood by
trying all possible moves. The move that minimizes the degree of
infeasibility is then selected and the process continues. When the
degree of infeasibility equals zero, the search exits phase 1 and
enters phase 2 of the algorithm.
Thanks to the aggressive approach of phase 1, the search is
very likely to reenter the feasible search space in an unexplored
area providing the search with the opportunity to find a new
better solution. Because phase 1 is only concerned with finding a
feasible solution in terms of union constraints, it neglects the
minimization of the total labor costs. This is captured by phase 2,
during which the search can only make moves where both
coverage and union constraints are satisfied. When the search is
unable to find a better (i.e., cheaper) solution for 100 iterations,
the search leaves phase 2 and enters phase 3.
Phase 3 starts with the last visited solution in phase 2 and is
allowed to relax the union constraints. It aggressively tries to
lower the costs by exploring the neighborhood. While doing so,
ð32Þ
the search will most likely make the transition to the infeasible
search space. Because of this aggressive approach, the overall
algorithm performance is quite sensitive to the number of itera-
tions in phase 3. With too few iterations, the algorithm converges
ð33Þ too slowly, with too many it will get stuck in an infeasible
solution, where it might be impossible to make it feasible again.
ð34Þ When the search exits phase 3, the best solution obtained during
that phase is set as the initial solution of phase 1.
ð35Þ
5. Results
5.1. Test set
ð36Þ The algorithm was tested using a set of 40 instances which
have been generated based on the real-life data from a major
ð37Þ
company weekly maintains about 300 flights. The workload of
these flights ranges from 30 minutes to 10 hours and the
company was faced with peak arrivals around 7 am and 5 pm.
In our testing, we also assumed a cycle time equal to 1 week
divided into 672 ( ¼4n24n7) periods of 15 min. This company
develops new rosters every 6 months (distinguishing between a
summer season with emphasis on holiday flights and a winter
season with emphasis on business flights). The workforce regula-
tions, shift costs and roster constraints, further referred to as the
supply side, are relatively stable. The flights that must be main-
tained, however, further referred to as the demand side, change
dramatically from season to season. Based on this observation,
our test set was generated using a random generator in which the
demand side differs with respect to three factors each having two
factor settings (Table 1).
These factors are inspired by two real-life instances provided
by our contact company. One instance applies to the winter 2008
season (including 7300 flights) and one to the summer 2011
season (including 7100 flights). The workload distributions in
our test set reflect the real workload distributions. In the setting
of the peak arrivals, 50% of the flight arrivals take place within
either the morning (between 6 am and 9 am) or the afternoon
Table 1
Factor settings.
Factor 1 2
Number of flights 100 300
Distribution of workloads (hours) UNIF(0,10) EXP(3.5)
Flight arrivals Peak arrivals Uniform arrivals
 J. Beliën et al. / Computers & Operations Research 40 (2013) 1023–1033
peak (between 4 pm and 7 pm). The arrivals of the other flights
are drawn from a uniform, random distribution. The reason for
incorporating the distribution of the flight arrivals was the
observation that the costs were highly dependent on this dis-
tribution. Consequently, a question, raised by the management
team, was to calculate by how much the costs would drop if the
flights were spread more evenly over the day. As the demand side
in the real-life instances contains confidential information, we
cannot make these instances publicly available. More information
on the real-life application as well as a detailed description on
how we addressed the concerns raised by different stakeholders
in several management meetings can be obtained in [26]. Because
this paper mainly addresses the methodology rather than the
real-life application, and we want other researchers to be able to
compare their algorithms on the same dataset, we opted to
generate random instances, which reflect the reality as much as
possible (as explained above).
For each of the eight ( ¼2n2n2) combinations, five instances
have been generated, resulting in a set of 40 instances. These
instances are named ‘‘Test_a_b_c_d’’, with a, b and c A f1,2g the
factor settings for the three factors in the same order as discussed
above, and d A f1,2,3,4,5g the number of the instance. This test
set is available for download on http://www.econ.kuleuven.be/
public/NDBAE13/professioneel_Engels.htm.
To reflect the reality, the supply side has been kept constant in
our computational experiment. Due to legal constraints, the
average number of work hours per week must be between 36
and 38 h. For each employee, at least half of the weekends must
be completely off. Concerning the shift definitions, only each 30-
min interval is considered to be a feasible starting time. A
morning shift must start between 5 am and 6:30 am. Hence, for
the morning shifts we have 5 am, 5:30 am, 6 am and 6:30 am as
possible starting times. A day shift must start between 7 am and
9 am. An evening shift must start between 12:15 pm and 2:45
pm. A night shift must start between 9 pm and 10:30 pm. The
total duration of a shift must either be 8, 8.5, 9 or 9.5 h (including
a half hour break). The cost of a day shift during the week is set at
15 Euro per hour (gross cost). There is a shift premium for
morning shifts ( ¼7% extra compared to the cost of a day shift),
evening shifts (9%) and night shifts (20%). There is an extra
weekend premium (on top of the shift premium): 16.67% for
Saturday shifts and 95% for Sunday shifts. Finally, there is an extra
premium for each night shift of 45 Euro (fixed), regardless of the
shift length.
As mentioned, we will only generate schedules containing two
cycles. The minimal number of weeks in a cycle equals 2, because
a cycle of 1 week implies that the workers either work all
weekends (if a shift during the weekend is scheduled) or none
at all (if no shift is scheduled during the weekend). The maximum
number of weeks in a cycle was also bounded, as a large number
of weeks ( ¼number of teams) corresponds to a small average
team size. To ensure that teams could be composed in which all
important skills were present, the maximum number of weeks
per cycle was set at 8. The restriction on the maximum number of
weeks per cycle also originates from a request of the company,
since they do not want to overload the task of the operational
scheduler.
5.2. Computational results
The left part of Table 2 lists the computational results of the
enumerative algorithm with bounding. The column ‘nodes’
reports the number of nodes visited, i.e., the number of MILPs
started within the given computation time. As the total number of
combinations equals 66 (see earlier) and each combination must
be explored at least once to obtain a general lower bound, the
1031
minimal number reported in this column is 66. The column ‘impr.’
indicates the number of times an improvement was found. The
column ‘cut-offs’ indicates the number of times a node was pruned
due to bound comparisons. Neither number includes the cut-offs
and improvements found within the MILPs. Each MILP was pro-
vided with a computation time limit of 30 s, which is extended by
120 seconds every time the node is revisited. The end criterion (see
‘check end criterion’ in Algorithm 1) for each instance was set to
1 hour of computation time, provided that each node has been
evaluated at least once. This last condition explains why some
computation times (e.g., instance Test_2_1_1_4) are far above 1 h.
The reason why all the combinations must be evaluated at least
once is to be able to calculate and report an overall lower bound.
The computational experiment was done using a 3.16 GHz PC with
3.21 GB RAM.
The results give rise to a number of conclusions and interest-
ing insights. First, although none of the instances could be solved
to optimality, the algorithm consequently succeeds in finding
quality solutions. These results suggest that an integrated
approach to staffing and scheduling is possible from a computa-
tional point of view. The gaps range from 2.28% to 28.96% with an
average of 9.84%. The average gap for the 100-flight problems
(11.70%) is significantly higher than for the 300-flight problems
(7.99%). The reason is that the total cost, which is the denomi-
nator in the calculation of the gap, is much higher in the 300-
flight problems. Neither the distribution of the workload, nor the
distribution of flight arrivals has an impact on the problem
difficulty. The column ‘cut-offs’ indicates that most of the nodes
are pruned based on bound comparisons (75.9% on average), i.e.,
the MILP computation is not started (first round) or continued
(after round 1) because the reported lower bound exceeds an
already found solution. Therefore, we conclude that the enumera-
tion scheme is quite effective.
Concerning the impact of the factor settings on the cost
(column ‘sol.’), we observed that both the number of flights and
the workload distributions have a significant impact. It might be
surprising that there is no significant difference between the peak
arrivals and the uniformly distributed arrivals. This could be
explained by the presence of more evening and night flights in
the uniformly distributed arrivals, which requires more expensive
evening and night shifts that compensate for the higher cost of
scheduling to peak capacity in the peak arrivals setting.
The tabu search algorithm was also run for 1 h on each
instance to compare it with the enumerative algorithm with
bounding. The last two columns in Table 2 present the computa-
tional results of the TS algorithm.
The reported gaps of the TS algorithm are for almost all
instances larger than those of the enumerative algorithm with
bounding. The gaps range from 4.36% to 38.37% with an average
of 12.98%. The enumerative algorithm therefore clearly (and
significantly at a level of p ¼0.05 ) outperforms TS in terms of
gaps. Moreover, the differences in gap increase with growing
problem size. On the other hand, the required computation times
for the large instances are higher for the enumerative algorithm.
The TS algorithm is thus more sensitive to growing problem
dimensions with respect to solution quality.
6. Conclusion and future research
This paper has described an enumeration algorithm with
bounding for solving a workforce planning problem encountered
at a major aircraft maintenance company and makes three
important contributions. First, whereas the existing models pre-
sented in the literature either concentrate on the scheduling
problem (and consider the staff levels to be given) or on the
1032 J. Beliën et al. / Computers & Operations Research 40 (2013) 1023–1033

Table 2
Computational results.

Enumerative MILP TS

Sol. LB Nodes Impr. Cut-offs Gap (%) Time (s) Sol. gap (%)

Test_1_1_1_1 15,797.63 13,471.02 75 3 62 17.27 3857.07 14,992.30 11.29

Test_1_1_1_2 20,311.23 17,812.52 74 3 57 14.03 3704.76 19,390.60 8.86
Test_1_1_1_3 15,917.26 13,641.30 75 3 59 16.68 3822.93 15,975.20 17.11
Test_1_1_1_4 16,329.80 14,151.03 75 2 62 15.40 3776.86 15,570.80 10.03
Test_1_1_1_5 17,096.39 16,426.45 75 1 63 4.08 4108.13 17,142.60 4.36
Test_1_1_2_1 13,224.08 11,569.81 75 2 63 14.30 3915.79 13,355.00 15.43
Test_1_1_2_2 14,047.06 10,892.33 75 1 62 28.96 3814.92 12,871.50 18.17
Test_1_1_2_3 20,214.64 18,658.28 75 2 62 8.34 3769.36 21,112.80 13.16
Test_1_1_2_4 16,198.62 14,984.41 73 4 64 8.10 3930.79 16,657.20 11.16
Test_1_1_2_5 15,898.47 14,259.84 75 1 61 11.49 3738.13 17,308.40 21.38
Test_1_2_1_1 13,584.22 12,596.78 73 4 64 7.84 3857.13 13,684.70 8.64
Test_1_2_1_2 16,233.99 14,940.10 75 4 62 8.66 3977.63 16,593.70 11.07
Test_1_2_1_3 11,182.43 10,529.06 73 2 65 6.21 3843.93 11,269.40 7.03
Test_1_2_1_4 11,723.62 10,292.37 75 4 64 13.91 3766.73 11,837.40 15.01
Test_1_2_1_5 14,479.60 12,929.34 75 3 62 11.99 3652.83 15,339.60 18.64
Test_1_2_2_1 9967.45 9031.33 74 3 64 10.37 3983.37 10,872.40 20.39
Test_1_2_2_2 11,324.73 10,803.13 72 2 65 4.83 3616.75 11,361.60 5.17
Test_1_2_2_3 12,962.77 12,674.36 74 3 65 2.28 4151.75 13,305.20 4.98
Test_1_2_2_4 10,844.73 9215.17 72 3 65 17.68 3623.58 11,019.60 19.58
Test_1_2_2_5 10,729.83 9622.77 74 2 64 11.50 3940.05 10,872.30 12.99
Test_2_1_1_1 34,251.37 31,774.96 66 3 40 7.79 4620.80 36,759.40 15.69
Test_2_1_1_2 32,502.63 30,471.92 66 2 33 6.66 5435.13 32,824.20 7.72
Test_2_1_1_3 34,270.65 33,187.28 66 3 49 3.26 3608.51 37,371.70 12.61
Test_2_1_1_4 33,724.40 31,186.74 66 3 23 8.14 6647.91 33,040.90 5.95
Test_2_1_1_5 32,263.35 30,633.16 66 4 27 5.32 6277.13 34,000.60 10.99
Test_2_1_2_1 29,855.84 28,718.82 68 2 49 3.96 3765.62 31,332.90 9.10
Test_2_1_2_2 40,015.67 36,432.31 66 3 42 9.84 4367.25 50,413.20 38.37
Test_2_1_2_3 30,469.68 28,528.74 66 3 38 6.80 4595.50 31,186.80 9.32
Test_2_1_2_4 30,477.71 28,164.54 66 3 38 8.21 4644.54 32,565.90 15.63
Test_2_1_2_5 30,920.98 28,028.02 66 2 39 10.32 4586.79 29,922.10 6.76
Test_2_2_1_1 19,881.87 18,452.19 71 2 52 7.75 3765.38 19,791.40 7.26
Test_2_2_1_2 19,324.97 17,335.01 71 4 51 11.48 3790.57 19,524.60 12.63
Test_2_2_1_3 22,245.85 20,578.43 74 1 59 8.10 3731.36 23,671.50 15.03
Test_2_2_1_4 19,924.53 17,949.11 72 2 52 11.01 3842.37 21,543.50 20.03
Test_2_2_1_5 20,577.34 18,622.31 73 3 55 10.50 3710.42 20,876.70 12.11
Test_2_2_2_1 17,310.57 15,799.42 69 4 47 9.56 3729.80 17,675.00 11.87
Test_2_2_2_2 18,681.92 17,302.12 73 2 55 7.97 3655.88 18,597.90 7.49
Test_2_2_2_3 20,448.09 19,153.81 75 3 62 6.76 3666.24 21,751.00 13.56
Test_2_2_2_4 20,755.16 19,483.89 76 3 60 6.52 3851.43 23,300.40 19.59
Test_2_2_2_5 22,652.91 20,626.80 72 3 53 9.82 3834.45 23,337.90 13.14

Average 20,465.60 18,773.27 72 3 54 9.84 4074.49 21,250.50 12.98

staffing problem (and ignore the scheduling problem, considering
it to be a lower-level operational problem), our model deals
simultaneously with both problem dimensions. Second, the
model presented in this paper makes it possible to decide on
the timing of the maintenance for each flight, in which this
decision is bounded by given time windows. Third, we present a
new problem formulation including feasible shift succession
guaranteeing constraints. This new formulation dramatically
decreases the number of binary decision variables and is, there-
fore, capable of finding good solutions within limited computa-
tion time. The approach was tested on a test set including 40
instances which were generated based on real-life data. The
computational results indicate that this integrated approach
succeeds in finding quality solutions within an acceptable com-
putation time. Compared to a TS algorithm, the enumerative
algorithm finds better quality solutions for both small and big
instances.
This study introduces a lot of opportunities for future research.
First, it would be very interesting to make our model more robust.
We acknowledge three major sources of uncertainty: (1) uncer-
tainty in supply (e.g., employee illness), (2) uncertainty in
demand (e.g., unexpected aircraft problems leading to higher
workloads) and (3) uncertainty in the timing of workloads
(e.g., flight delays). Is it possible to incorporate this uncertainty
into the model by adding ‘robust constraints’ or developing a
stochastic programming model, or is a simulation approach the
only feasible alternative? Second, the scheduling decision can be
further detailed in the current model. For instance, our model
decides on the number and type of shifts on each day for each
cycle, but we would like to extend it by means of an automated
procedure in order to assign these shifts to the specific weeks
within each cycle. Third, the model can be extended in order to
allow for part-time workers and different skills. Fourth, the current
model does not ensure that the maintenance of a particular flight is
scheduled in a consecutive way. In other words, the solution might
assign the first part of a flight’s workload at the beginning of its
time window and the remaining part toward the end of its time
window (with a break in between). Obviously, this is not feasible in
practice. Finally, this type of problem setting, in which the timing
of the workload represents an extra decision dimension, is not
specific to the aircraft maintenance industry. For instance, in nurse
scheduling and project scheduling, the timing of the workload is
also a controllable decision. The workload for nurses depends on
the operating room and appointment scheduling, while the timing
of the workload in projects depends on the scheduling of different
activities. It would be very interesting to identify more workforce
 J. Beliën et al. / Computers & Operations Research 40 (2013) 1023–1033
applications that might benefit from the approach described in this
paper and try to develop a general solution framework.
Acknowledgments
The authors are extremely grateful to Willy Buysse and Thierry
Van Damme (both Sabena Technics) for introducing them into
this fascinating problem and providing them with input data,
real-life constraints and useful feedback on the generated rosters.
The authors also thank the anonymous referees for their valuable
comments which undoubtedly helped to improve both the pre-
sentation and the content of this paper.
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