Tag: Module B

Good OM Reading: Using LP to Schedule NCAA Basketball Tournament Games

What could be more timely than an article in the Journal of the Operations Research Society called “Team Assignments and Scheduling for the NCAA Basketball Tournament.”  The paper, by U. of Alabama professors S.H. Melouk and B.B. Keskin, provides a wonderful example to use in class when you teach linear programming, in Module B.

The authors write: “The buzz of the tournament and the fanatical behavior of the followers of the participating teams serve as our motivation to examine and develop a team assignment model that maintains the integrity of the tournament while also attempting to place teams closer to their campus location, thus making it easier for both fans and teams to travel to the game sites. Observation of game venues shows a decrease in the actual attendance at early round tournament games. In 2010, actual attendance at the early round game sites was, on average, 83.5% of capacity. This statistic is surprisingly low. A likely contributing factor is the long distances that fans must travel to attend games.”

The growing NCAA concern is travel expenses of the participating teams, as the NCAA reimburses each team for their travel to tournament games. Given there are 68 tournament teams, it is a significant expense to transport the players, their equipment, and coaching staffs to game sites. In an effort to curb expenses, the NCAA  requires a minimum distance of 350 miles from a game site before air travel is reimbursable.

The article describes the development of an integer LP program designed to optimize team assignments in the sense of minimizing the total distance travelled by teams to game sites. Results of testing the model against actual tournament assignments  show consistent and significant cost savings and reductions in distance travelled. In fact, 28,202 travel miles were saved in 2010 with use of the LP model.

 

Video Tip: Scheduling Employees at Hard Rock Cafe

One of my favorite videos is a short  (4.5 min.) study of how Hard Rock Cafe schedules its 160 servers at the giant 1,100 seat Hard Rock here in Orlando. I show it when I teach scheduling (Ch.15) and linear programming (Mod.B in the hard cover text). The  topic is one  many students relate to, especially if they have worked in retail or restaurants, where schedules are always a sensitive subject.

In Hard Rock’s case, the sales forecast is critical. Many factors are considered in deciding how many servers to call in, including historical sales, major conferences in town, season, etc. Each employee submits a weekly request form, and then an LP package takes over, with the objective of minimizing the number of employees per shift. It turns out that the system works quite well and employees are usually satisfied. Turnover, even during non-recession times, is 1/2 the industry average.

What we don’t mention in the video is that the managers never mastered the scheduling software, which is actually somewhat complex. But one, very enterprising, young server offered to handle the weekly task on his own. He collects all the forms, goes down into a basement office every Saturday, where it takes him about 6 hours to input the data and churn out the schedules. He does this for no additional pay! Why, you ask? Because  constraints and schedules are set by seniority, and he is allowed to assign himself the highest priority, a 9. It turns out that a great schedule, at the right work stations, can make the difference of $100’s a week in tips.

This topic is one that students with jobs are more than happy to discuss..