Use of Integer Programming to Optimize the Scheduling of Panels at Annual Meetings of the Public Choice Society.

Preparation for the annual meetings of an organization such as the Public Choice Society involves scheduling various panels (sessions) in the available time slots. No person can be scheduled for more than one panel in the same time slot. Each panel belongs to a specific subject area; one tries to spread the panels in each area among the time slots as evenly as possible. We develop an integer-programming model to produce a schedule that maximizes the evenness subject to the constraints. We successfully applied the model retrospectively, as a test case, to schedule the 2001 annual meetings of the society. Copyright 2003 by Kluwer Academic Publishers