An Exact Algorithm for Technician Scheduling Problem with Release Times

To solve the technician scheduling problem, this paper establishes a technician scheduling model considering the task release time, and designs a branch delimitation algorithm to solve the problem accurately by fully utilizing each technician's skills and allocating limited human resources to process tasks quickly and efficiently. In the branch delimitation algorithm, multiple pruning rules are proposed to reduce the number of branches and speed up the algorithm solution, and the upper and lower bounds are obtained by the variable neighborhood algorithm and solving the relaxation subproblem. By generating random cases for computational experiments, the computational results show that the proposed domination rules have good domination efficiency, some pruning rules perform better, and the branch delimitation algorithm can achieve optimal results with the maximum experimental case size of 5 technicians and 20 tasks. Compared with CPLEX, the algorithm expands the maximum solvable case size and significantly reduces the solution time