Abstract We consider the tactical planning aspect of a dynamic technician routing and scheduling problem with a time horizon of several days. In this problem study, some tasks are known beforehand, while others arrive dynamically. The tactical planning is to schedule the known tasks, such that we minimize the overall driving distance while ensuring short service times for the dynamic tasks. Without tactical planning, the known tasks would be spread throughout the whole area as they are scheduled based on a first-come-first-serve principle. In this study, we partition the area into disjoint slices covering the full plane and then assign the slices to individual work days. The partitioning of the area will be constructed with a balanced sweep algorithm using two approaches: The first is based on a parallel sweep-line following a given angle, while the second is based on a rotating sweep-line around a given origin. To guide the partitioning, we aim to minimize the degree of dynamism, which in our case is defined by the number of dynamic tasks, the distance from known tasks to dynamic tasks, and the tightness of the time windows. The tactical planning is evaluated using real-life and synthetic clustered data, where some of the tasks are known beforehand, and some are dynamic. We benchmark the various partitioning approaches against the default strategy of serving all known tasks on a first-come-first-serve basis. Computational results are reported showing around a 10% reduction in driving distance when using tactical planning. Furthermore, we show that up to 70% of the technicians can have a non-dynamic work day, without a significant increase in driving distance.

    Highlights We present a new tactical planning problem for the dynamic technician routing and scheduling problem formulated as a two-stage SOP. An ALNS algorithm for routing and scheduling of technicians is developed. We introduce a new measure of the degree of dynamism taking into account the geography of the tasks. We present various strategies for dividing the plane into segments and compare their performance by solving the dynamic problem. We show that the new measure of the degree of dynamism can be used to predict the routing costs of a segmentation of the plane.


    Access

    Check access

    Check availability in my library

    Order at Subito €


    Export, share and cite



    Title :

    Tactical planning for dynamic technician routing and scheduling problems


    Contributors:


    Publication date :

    2023-07-09




    Type of media :

    Article (Journal)


    Type of material :

    Electronic Resource


    Language :

    English




    Interactive test scheduling returns control to the technician

    Hooper,M. / Entwistle.I. / Dore,A.M. et al. | Automotive engineering | 1994


    Interactive Test Scheduling Returns Control to the Technician

    Hooper, M. / Entwistle, I. / Dore, A. M. et al. | British Library Conference Proceedings | 1994


    Technician Assignment Interface

    MERG PATRICK S / FOREMAN JACOB G / MERCER TODD et al. | European Patent Office | 2018

    Free access

    Assessing Technician Training

    SAE Technical Papers | 2007


    ASSESSING TECHNICIAN TRAINING

    SAE Technical Papers | 1989