Interactive Optimization Methodology for Fleet Scheduling

摘要

This paper addresses the problem of scheduling the United States Navy's Atlantic Fleet to overseas strategic requirements. The requirements are unique in a scheduling context in that the start and stop times to process them are fixed advance. An integer programming formulation for the problem is developed. However, the integer program is too large to optimally solve. This fact and the subjective nature of additional secondary objectives and constraints suggest an interactive optimization approach. A system which solves a relaxation of the integer program within an interactive environment is discussed.