Newsgroups: comp.constraints
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!rochester!udel!news.intercon.com!panix!news.mathworks.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!howland.reston.ans.net!EU.net!news2.EUnet.fr!news.fnet.fr!ilog!puget
From: puget@ilog.ilog.fr (Jean-Francois Puget)
Subject: Re: Using constraint programming for scheduling problem
Message-ID: <1995Sep11.092913.28642@ilog.fr>
To: Narath Carlile <carlile@limestone.kosone.com>
Sender: news@ilog.fr
Nntp-Posting-Host: laumiere
Organization: ILOG S.A., France
References:  <42poao$e16@limestone.kosone.com>
Date: Mon, 11 Sep 95 09:29:13 GMT
Lines: 53

In article <42poao$e16@limestone.kosone.com>, Narath Carlile <carlile@limestone.kosone.com> writes:
|> Hi all,
|> 
|> I'm pretty much a newbie to constraint programming, and am really only familiar with 
|> the concept. I am interested in a scheduling problem; that of scheduling nurses for 
|> hospital duty. There are a number of what I would consider constraints, of legal 
|> issues of how many hours a person can work, of how many nurses must be on duty at a 
|> time etc.
|> 
|> Is constraint programming suitable for this type of problem? If so are there any 
|> languages/environments that people would suggest?
|> 
|> Thanks in advance.
|> Narath Carlile.
|> 
|> 


Several nurse time tabling have been developped using constraint programming.

I am aware of the following ones:

Scheduling nurses in a Spain hospital:
A paper was presented in the last Ilog Solver/Schedule User conference, and is available
on our web server:
http://www.ilog.com

Scheduling in Grenoble (france) hospital, with Ilog Solver.
No paper available.

\bibitem[Caseau 93] {Caseau 93}
Yves Caseau, Pierre-Yves Guillo and Eric Levenez.
{\em A Deductive and Object-Oriented Approach to a Complex Scheduling
Problem.}
Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Deductive and
Object-Oriented Databases, Phoenix, Arizona, 1993.

Hopital de Rouen (France). 
The application is developped with CHARME, a constraint programming language
that used to be sold by BULL.

This should convince you of the applicability of constraint programming.

I am inclined to suggest Ilog Solver, but I am a little biased towards it...

You should consult the FAQ of this newsgroup for more information about
this product and its competitors.

-- 
  Jean-Francois Puget		 net : puget@ilog.fr
  ILOG S.A.                      url : http://www.ilog.fr
  9 rue de Verdun - BP 85	 tel : +33 1 49 08 35 00
  F-94253 Gentilly Cedex FRANCE	 fax : +33 1 49 08 35 10
