The assignment of workers to tasks - An example from an academic department

Abstract

A description is given of the application of Operations Research techniques to the problem of assigning lecturers to tasks in an academic department. All the steps in the approach are described - from the collection of the data through the building of a mathematical model to the implementation of the solution. Two approaches to obtaining a solution are described. Firstly a heuristic method is shown which can be done with pencil and paper. The solution obtained with this method can be used for implementation, or it can be used as a starting solution for the computer package used for the solution of the mathematical model.