Scheduling operating theatres: Mixed integer programming vs. constraint programming

Resource Leveling Based on Line of Balance and Constraint Programming

“…CP comprises four key factors. (1) Problem specification: a basic CP model uses decision variables, variable domains, and constraints between variables for describing CSPs (Liu and Wang, ; Chan and Hu, ; Wang et al., ). (2) Search strategies: CP technology utilizes certain search strategies and constraint propagations for model solving (Menesi and Hegazy, ).…”

“…CP was adopted in the proposed study for solving LOB‐based resource leveling problems for the following four reasons. CP is efficient in solving and optimizing scheduling problems usually characterized by nonlinear constraints, logical statements, or nonconvex solution spaces (Wang et al., ). Besides, use of CP offers obvious advantages for scheduling optimization problems characterized by a high degree of constraint.…”

“…Besides, use of CP offers obvious advantages for scheduling optimization problems characterized by a high degree of constraint. Its declarative logical language and ability to represent various constraints makes it powerful in handling real‐world complexities (Chan and Hu, ; Wang et al., ; Heipcke, ). Moreover, use of CP renders modeling of the scheduling problem as much more intuitive, and performance of CP models has been observed to improve with increase in constraints (Wang et al., ). In particular, Tang et al.…”

“…Its declarative logical language and ability to represent various constraints makes it powerful in handling real‐world complexities (Chan and Hu, ; Wang et al., ; Heipcke, ). Moreover, use of CP renders modeling of the scheduling problem as much more intuitive, and performance of CP models has been observed to improve with increase in constraints (Wang et al., ). In particular, Tang et al. () discussed the advantages of applying CP to linear project scheduling optimization. Menesi and Hegazy () and Menesi et al.…”

“…() discussed the advantages of applying CP to linear project scheduling optimization. Menesi and Hegazy () and Menesi et al. () independently employed CP, the exact method, and heuristic methods to the schedule optimization problem of large and highly constrained projects and observed that CP is far superior to the other two techniques in terms of solving time and solution quality. CP has been successfully employed for solving complex combinatorial problems in various domains, including industrial scheduling problems (Brailsford et al., ; Chan and Hu, ; Heipcke, ; Rossi et al., ; Liu and Wang, ; Wang et al., ). In recent years, some researchers have applied CP to scheduling problems in civil engineering (Chan and Hu, ; Liu and Wang, , , ; Menesi and Hegazy, ; Menesi et al., ).…”