Solution approaches to large shift scheduling problems

This paper considers large shift scheduling problems with different shift start times and lengths, fractionable breaks and work stretch duration restrictions. Two solution approaches are proposed to solve the problems over a multiple-day planning horizon. The first approach is based on a local branching strategy and the second one is based on a temporal decomposition of the problem. Local branching is very efficient in finding good feasible solutions when compared to a classical branch-and-bound procedure. However, the decomposition approach has the advantage of yielding feasible solutions in short computing times, even for difficult instances.