Real-Time Field Service Engineer Scheduling Problem with Emergencies and Collaborations: a Simulation-Optimization Approach
The authors address the real-time Field Service Engineer (FSE) routing and scheduling problem encountered in human resources operations. For many companies the assignment of FSEs to jobs is challenging due to the dynamic occurrence of job requests. This adds up to contractual conditions generally imposing hard service time windows (TW) and high service standards, e.g. maximum response time to an emergency. The problem also includes further constraints defining: (i) collaborations between the FSEs (if needed), and (ii) different levels of jobs’ emergency (the higher the job emergency, the faster reaction is required). An additional factor, usually neglected, which needs to be considered is the comfort of the FSEs regarding the route stability. To account for this aspect the authors propose a novel methodological approach that aims at mitigating the disruption propagation in addition to the minimization of the operational cost - i.e. if a FSE is not assigned to an emergency, his planning should not change, or suffer minimal deviations if close to the emergency location. To solve the problem, the authors designed an event-driven simulation-based optimization approach using Large Neighborhood Search. This research is a result of a commercial engagement with industry and provides results for the real-life inspired scenarios.
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Supplemental Notes:
- This paper was sponsored by TRB committee AT015 Standing Committee on Freight Transportation Planning and Logistics.
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Corporate Authors:
500 Fifth Street, NW
Washington, DC United States 20001 -
Authors:
- Grzybowska, Hanna
- Serrano, Daniel Guimarans
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Conference:
- Transportation Research Board 96th Annual Meeting
- Location: Washington DC, United States
- Date: 2017-1-8 to 2017-1-12
- Date: 2017
Language
- English
Media Info
- Media Type: Digital/other
- Features: Figures; References; Tables;
- Pagination: 24p
- Monograph Title: TRB 96th Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers
Subject/Index Terms
- TRT Terms: Engineers; Human resources management; Methodology; Optimization; Routing; Scheduling; Simulation
- Subject Areas: Administration and Management; Planning and Forecasting; Transportation (General);
Filing Info
- Accession Number: 01626523
- Record Type: Publication
- Report/Paper Numbers: 17-01835
- Files: TRIS, TRB, ATRI
- Created Date: Feb 27 2017 9:25AM