CASE STUDY- I

TASK SCHEDULING

• Presented By : Muhammad Fahad

Sumaya Abdul Rahman
• Manal AlZaidan
• Abdus Samad

• Submitted to : Dr. Adel Elomri

Problem Statement

7 employees

25 tasks
Question 1

• Task Scheduling
• A manager of a company is aiming to scheduling a set of tasks over
his employees. Each task is characterized by a duration (in minutes) and
can be handled by any of the employees (skills independent). Any
task should be allocated to only one employee, it cannot be divided
among many employees.

• Question- Propose a Linear Program that helps providing a “task

number-based Fair” schedule. Task number-based fairness is measured in
the sense of total number of tasks allocated to each employee.
Goal Programming based approach for task number
based fair scheduling of Employees

Decision Variables:
• X ij : is a binary decision variable indicating whether task I is assigned to employee j.
• d1j : is a float decision variable representing the overhead deviation for employee j.
• d2j : is a float decision variable representing the under-head deviation for employee j.
Objective Function:
• Minimize the sum of overhead and under-head deviation in assigned tasks for each employee
from the goal.

Minimize
Our Approach and Solution
Constraints:
• Each task must be assigned to exactly one employee no task to be split among
employees.

• Each employee can handle a minimum of one task to avoids scenarios where some
employees might be left without any tasks, contributing to work distribution fairness.

• Define deviation variables for each employee's goal:

• Define non-negative deviation variables for overhead:

• Define non-negative deviation variables for under head:

 OPL Code

/
OPL Code
OPL Results
 Task Scheduling

Question
A manager of a company is aiming to scheduling a set
of tasks over his employees. Each task is characterized by
a duration (in minutes) and can be handled by any of the

2
employees (skills independent). Any task should be
allocated to only one employee, it cannot be divided
among many employees.

Question: Propose a Linear Program that helps providing

a “duration-based Fair” schedule. Duration-based fairness
is measured in the sense of total work duration (in
minutes) allocated to each employee.
Our Approach and Solution
Sets:
• M is the set of tasks, M = {1,2,….,m}
• N is the set of employees, N = {1,2,….,n}
• Decision Variable:
• Xij : is a binary decision variable indicating whether task I is assigned to employee j.
• d1j : is a float decision variable representing the overhead deviation for employee j.
• d2j : is a float decision variable representing the under-head deviation for employee j.
Data:
• dr[M] is an array representing the duration of tasks M.
• Goal is the average duration of tasks assigned to each employee.
• Objective Function:
• Minimize the total deviation from the goal for all employees:

Minimize
Our Approach and Solution
Constraints:
• Each task must be assigned to exactly one employee:

• Each employee must handle a minimum of one task:

• Define deviation variables for each employee's goal:

• Define non-negative deviation variables for over-head:

• Define non-negative deviation variables for under head:

OPL Code
OPL Code
Duration based Fair Scheduling of Employees

Assigned Tasks Numbers Deviation

Employees Duration assigned
from goal

Employee 1 1, 3, 9, 20 [ 17 + 91 + 40 + 36] = 184 0

Employee 2 11, 12, 18 [ 60 + 52 + 72] = 184 0

Employee 3 13, 23, 25 [73 + 100 + 11] = 184 0

Employee 4 4, 8,10, 16,19 [21 + 55 + 52 + 46 + 10] = 184 0

Employee 5 14,15, 22 [46 + 63 + 74] = 183 1

Employee 6 5, 6, 17, 21 [31 + 97 + 28 + 28] =184 0

Employee 7 2, 7, 24 [62 + 57 + 65] =184 0

 Task Scheduling
Bonus
Question
Catering both Task-number based
fairness and Duration-based
fairness at the same time to look for
best tradeoff
Problem with: Duration based Fair Scheduling
of Employees
Employees Assigned Tasks Total Tasks Deviation
Numbers Assigned from goal
Duration assigned

Employee 1 1, 3, 9, 20 4 [ 17 + 91 + 40 + 36] = 184 0

Employee 2 11, 12, 18 3 [ 60 + 52 + 72] = 184 0

Employee 3 13, 23, 25 3 [73 + 100 + 11] = 184 0

Employee 4 4, 8,10, 16,19 5 [21 + 55 + 52 + 46 + 10] = 184 0

Employee 5 14,15, 22 3 [46 + 63 + 74] = 183 1

Employee 6 5, 6, 17, 21 3 [31 + 97 + 28 + 28] =184 0

Employee 7 2, 7, 24 3 [62 + 57 + 65] =184 0

Our Approach and Solution
Sets:
• M is the set of tasks, M = {1,2,….,m}
• N is the set of employees, N = {1,2,….,n}
• Goal_task_number = 3.57
• Decision Variable:
• Xij : is a binary decision variable indicating whether task I is assigned to employee j.
• D_task_number : representing the overhead deviation for task number-based fairness.
• S_task_number : representing the under-head deviation for task number-based fairness.
• D_task_number : representing the overhead deviation for time duration-based fairness.
• S_task_number : representing the under-head deviation for time duration-based fairness.
Our Approach and Solution

Objective Function:
Minimize
Our Approach and Solution
Constraints:
• Each task must be assigned to exactly one employee:

• Each employee must handle a minimum of one task:

• Define deviation from task goal:

• Define non-negative deviation variables for under-head (task number based):

• Define non-negative deviation variables for over-head (task number based):

Our Approach and Solution
Constraints:

• Define time duration based fairness constraints:

• Define non-negative deviation variables for under-head (duration based):

• Define non-negative deviation variables for over-head (time duration based):

OPL Code
OPL Code
OPL Results
Best Trade-off for scheduling of Employees based on Task
Number and Duration based Fairness
Employee Assigned Tasks Total Tasks Duration assigned Deviation Deviation
Number Numbers Assigned from Duration from Task
goal Number goal

1 5,6,14,19 4 [31+97+46+10] = 184 0.15 0.43

2 12,16,22,25 4 [52+46+74+11] = 183 0.85 0.43
3 10,11,18 3 [52+60+72] = 184 0.15 0.57
4 1,2,9,24 4 [17+62+40+65] = 184 0.15 0.43
5 8,13,17,21 4 [55+73+28+28] = 184 0.15 0.43
6 3,7,20 3 [91+57+36] = 184 0.15 0.57
7 4,15,23 3 [21+63+100] = 184 0.15 0.57
Total Combined Deviation for all Employees 5.18
Analysis of Solution: Our Comments