Using a large set of low level heuristics in a hyperheuristic approach to personnel scheduling

Abstract

A hyperheuristic is a high-level search method which manages the choice of low level heuristics, making it a robust and easy to implement approach for complex real-world problems. We only need to develop new low level heuristics and define the objective functions in order to apply a hyperheuristic to an entirely new problem. Although hyperheuristic methods require limited problem-specific information, their performance for a particular problem is determined to a great extent by the quality of low level heuristics used. This chapter addresses the question of designing the set of low level heuristics for the problem under consideration. We construct a large set of low level heuristics by using a technique which allows us to "multiply" partial low level heuristics. We apply hyperheuristic methods to a trainer scheduling problem using commercial data from a large financial institution. The results of the experiments show that simple hyperheuristic approaches can successfully tackle a complex real-world problem provided that low level heuristics are carefully selected to treat various constraints. We examine experimentally how the choice of different sets of low level heuristics affects the solution quality. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2007.