Proceedings of the 2015 Industrial and Systems Engineering Research Conference

S. Cetinkaya and J. K. Ryan, eds.

Planning Personnel Timetable: A Network Model for an Academic

Application

Rolando José Acosta-Amado1, Marcela Villa-Marulanda2, Alberto García-Díaz2, Isaac

Atuahene4, Ivonne Cecilia Lacera-Cortés5

Grupo de Investigación MyOS, Facultad de Ingeniería Industrial

Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana Seccional Bucaramanga
Autopista Piedecuesta Km 7, Floridablanca, Santander, Colombia1, 2, 5

Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering

The University of Tennessee
Knoxville, TN 37996-23153, 4

Abstract
Personnel timetabling, a problem present in a wide diversity of administrative scenarios, can become a challenging
undertaking for a computationally expensive heuristic solution procedure, implemented by hand with the use of a
spreadsheet in an academic context. The case of the Pontificia Bolivariana University at Bucaramanga (UPB.Bga)
Colombia has become particularly challenging due to the ever increasing number of both, students enrolled and
faculty members hired during the last ten years. A two-phase solution approach is being implemented: the first
phase, planning, determines the requirements, creates early scenarios of aggregated timetables for each faculty
member and each course, and assesses them. The second phase, programming, provides the final detailed academic
timetable for each faculty member enforcing the natural constraints of the problem and the institutional regulations
that apply. The proposed integer programming (IP) model for the planning phase and the computational results of
the model applied to an actual scenario from the Faculty of Industrial Engineering at UPB.Bga corresponding to the
second semester of year 2013 are presented. Avenues for future work on this application based on this particular
scenario are discussed.

Keywords
Personnel timetabling, academic timetabling, network flow formulation

1. Introduction
Personnel timetabling problems are present in a wide diversity of contexts including health care systems,
manufacturing facilities and academic institutions; all of them having many common features in spite of their
significant disparities. The timetabling problem in academic institutions has been intensively investigated during the
last five decades using a broad spectrum of modeling and solution techniques to develop tailored applications with
different levels of success and a limited applicability in other scenarios; as a result of the wide variety of operating
conditions among academic institutions. The solution of this problem provides the weekly schedule of the faculty
members; which is of vital importance in virtually every private higher educational institution in Colombia.

The Pontificia Bolivariana University (UPB), a private higher educational institution which main campus is located
in Medellín, Colombia, is a university system composed of four campuses; the other three located in the cities of
Montería, Palmira and Bucaramanga. The School of Engineering (SE) of the UPB.Bga consists of six engineering
programs; among which the Industrial Engineering (IE) program has the largest number of undergraduate students;
about 1240 currently enrolled. The curriculum of the Industrial Engineering (IE) program is distributed in 10
semesters and divided in three sections: basic engineering courses, professional courses and the majoring area
courses. There are 51 faculty members devoted to deliver the courses from the professional and majoring portions
of the curriculum of the undergraduate IE program; out of which, 25 are full time, 1 is a part time faculty member
 Acosta-Amado, Villa-Marulanda, García-Díaz, Atuahene and Lacera-Cortés
and 25 are adjunct faculty members. The growth of the undergraduate IE program has come with a challenging
increase of the computational requirements to find a feasible solution for the problem with a heuristic algorithm
implemented by hand with the aid of a spreadsheet that does not consider a measure of effectiveness of the final
result; which is often of questionable quality.

One way to address this problem is by using mathematical programming models and a previous study proposed an
Integer Programming (IP) model to program the academic timetable of the FIE.UPB.Bga [1]; although with limited
success from a practical perspective, the results for the programming version of the problem were encouraging to
continue working with mathematical formulations and exact solution procedures. The problem version addressed in
that study was concerned with programming the detailed weekly timetable of each faculty member, distinguishing in
his/her weekly timetable each session of each section of every course s/he is assigned to deliver; in contrast with the
model proposed in this paper that aims to solve the problem from a planning perspective. A planning perspective
results in a more aggregated version of the weekly timetable for each faculty member providing an initial picture of
the academic schedule that can be used to investigate the effects of possible changes that usually arise in the system.
Also, while the previous study on the programming version of the problem experimented with random instances [1],
this paper reports on the results obtained with the proposed model addressing an actual scenario highlighting the
potential for a dramatic improvement in both the computational time required and the quality of the final solution
obtained.

The academic timetabling problem has been addressed in a wide diversity of educational institutions around the
world using a vast number of modeling and solution methodologies; which can be classified in two main groups:
heuristic & meta heuristic approaches and mathematical programming approaches. Among the latter, the use of
network flow models has received limited attention and virtually every previous research effort has been focused in
scenarios significantly different than the UPB.Bga context; which precludes their straightforward implementation.
Previous studies, for example, have used both single commodity NF models [2] and multiple commodities NF
models [3] to address the ATP to assign teachers to rooms, times or classes [4]; however, in high school or
unspecified contexts. The use of NF models along with heuristic procedures has also been investigated in the ATP
context. One example of this kind of study was a solution methodology for the faculty/course scheduling problem
for a graduate school in UCLA [5]; which has significant disparities with the undergraduate program of IE of the
FIE.UPB.Bga. A second example of this undertaking is the use of NF models and heuristic procedures to solve the
timetabling problem for some public secondary schools in Switzerland [6].

Another university context in which the academic timetabling problem was addressed using NF models is the
undergraduate program of Industrial Design of TU Eidnhoven [7]. The problem was to decide what courses a
student should be enrolled in based on a list of his/her preferences and a maximum capacity, in number of students,
of each course; rather than deciding on the weekly schedule for the faculty members given the academic needs of the
program; which is the case of the FIE.UPB.Bga. Other studies have focused on studying the NF model itself rather
than representing a particular real life scenario similar to the undergraduate IE program of the FIE.UPB.Bga. For
instance, a previous work using NF models for the ATP; which focused the discussion on the complexity of the
proposed models for the problem of scheduling the teaching program of a school using a multi commodity network
flow (MCNF) formulation [3]. A more recent example of this kind of research work investigated how NF models
for the graph coloring problem can be used with the intention of modeling some type of scheduling problems, with a
limited discussion on the school timetabling problem [8]. None of these references addressed the ATP of a
university context at an undergraduate program similar to the FIE.UPB.Bga scenario.

Despite the vast amount of research work previously developed for the ATP during the last five decades, a context
like the FIE.UPB.Bga has not been clearly defined as the object of any of these studies. The uniqueness of the case
considered in this paper comes from the important details of the problem that are defined by the internal regulations
of the institution. While NF formulations have been previously reported successful to solve the ATP in a significant
number of educational institutions, these important details remain unaddressed using this type of mathematical
formulation. In general, the vast majority of the previous research work is composed of tailored solutions for the
institutions that inspired them and in rare occasions they can be used to solve the ATP in another institution [5, 12];
the practical difficulty of the ATP problem varies tremendously between schools or even between semesters in the
same school [4]. Furthermore, most of the previous research work on NF formulations for the ATP has focused on
the high school context; which is quite different from its university counterpart and the few cases addressing
university contexts have important disparities with the scenario of the FIE.UPB.Bga; precluding their
 Acosta-Amado, Villa-Marulanda, García-Díaz, Atuahene and Lacera-Cortés
straightforward adoption without significant modifications. In the particular case of the FIE.UPB.Bga, there
remains the need to develop a tailored solution for the problem and NF models are worth being investigated due to
their widely accepted modeling versatility and solution procedure advantages [11].

This paper proposes a multi commodity network flow model with a set of side constraints for planning the labor of
the faculty members of the professional section of the IE curriculum with the aim of investigating its computational
performance when addressing scenarios with sizes similar, or bigger, to the real life scenario. The body of this
paper is composed as follows: the next section provides a description of the problem of planning the personnel
timetable in the academic context of the FIE of UPB.Bga. Section three reviews the relevant related work. Section
four provides the model formulation for planning the academic timetable; from which the personnel schedule is
determined. Section five presents the results obtained from using the model to solve the ATP for the second
semester of 2013 in the FIE.UPB.Bga. Section six discusses some concluding remarks and section seven provides
the list of surveyed references.

2. Problem Description
Every semester, the Office for Academic Coordination of the SE of UPB.Bga determines the weekly timetable for
all the faculty members of the six engineering undergraduate programs for the following semester based on the
weekly timetable of the current semester. The AT is determined by seeking the minimization of changes with
respect to the AT of the previous semester; a process known as rolling that seems to have been formally introduced
in 1965 [12]. It turns out that this timetable is sensitive to the demand of each course and the availability of faculty
members and so a slight change in one of these two parameters might trigger a chain reaction that could affect the
weekly schedule of faculty members in another School of the institution. Moreover, several limited physical
resources; such as classrooms and technology, are shared among the different programs campus wide incrementing
the inherent interdependencies of the system. Once the timetable is generated, it is posted online and the registration
process is started; but if a change occurs, then an intense labor for adjustment is required with the objective of
generating a new feasible timetable; and most of the time this process results in a final timetable that is far from
perfect. This kind of last minute adjustment is not unusual as it is normal that the demand of courses and
availability of faculty members change on a semester by semester basis.

Under these circumstances, once a timetable has been accomplished, there is always a probability that last minute
modifications will have to be made, even after the first day of classes; and if it happens, then an intense labor
process must be performed to determine the changes in the original timetable, sometimes affecting the enforcement
of institutional regulations creating a final result of questionable quality. This hot work type of modifications
demand intense peaks of labor from the university employees responsible for creating the academic timetable of the
SE and often its final result creates frustration among the community members affected by these changes as in the
vast majority of the cases these changes go in detriment of the quality of their weekly schedules. The current
methodology to address these modifications does not consider a measure of effectiveness of the final AT; rather it
just focuses in seeking a feasible solution in order to respond to the demanding community of the school in an
opportune manner.

The degree of complexity of this problem requires the solution methodology to be run in two phases: phase I, a
planning stage, and phase II, a programming stage. This paper reports on selected partial results of the current
version of the model for the planning phase; which aims to determine a first view of the AT in an aggregated fashion
from the faculty members perspective and studying how sensitive it is to changes in availability of faculty members
and in the demand of the number of sections of selected courses. This phase provides the day, time, classroom and
number of sections of each course a determined faculty member will deliver without specifying the day and time
each session of each section of each course will be offered. The input data under consideration is composed by the
number of faculty members; and the set of courses each faculty member is qualified to deliver, the classrooms
available to offer the classes and the information related with the requirements associated with each course with
respect to number of sessions and type of classroom.

3. Previous Relevant Research Work

As the amount of previous research work is very large, only references studying network flow formulations for the
ATP are discussed in this section; notwithstanding, the interested reader can refer to reference [13], for a survey of
 Acosta-Amado, Villa-Marulanda, García-Díaz, Atuahene and Lacera-Cortés
papers on the ATP that appeared before 1980; reference [14], for a survey on various model formulations for the
ATP; and references [9], [15]–[17] for surveys of timetabling methods and applications.

Some previous studies have focused their attention in the model itself and its complexity, rather than in solving a
particular real life scenario. Two good examples of this kind of work are a discussion on the NP-Completeness of
the timetable problem; defined as a mathematical model of the problem of scheduling the teaching program of a
school using a multi commodity network model [3] and a discussion that was concentrated on the graph coloring
model with the intention of modeling some type of scheduling problems [8]. A problem solving methodology in
five steps for the faculty/course scheduling problem was prescribed and illustrated using the classroom/time
assignment problem using NF models with heuristic procedures in the graduate school in UCLA [5] and in the
system of public high schools in Switzerland [6]. The main contribution of the former was to formulate a significant
component of the problem with a simplified model and proposing a solution procedure that exploits the problem
structure. The latter considered a set of groups of students, a set of teachers, a set of classrooms, and a set of days,
each consisting of a collection of hours to define the problem of assigning each lecture of each combination to some
hour of the week while enforcing that no teacher and no class could be involved in more than one lecture at a time.

Various MCNF formulations with fractional capacities and integral gains for the general student scheduling problem
to address the ATP in the high school system in North America were also investigated accommodating a number of
practical objectives [4]. The student-scheduling problem is the assignment of students to sections of courses offered
at various times during the week in order to fulfill the requests of the students, providing each student with a conflict
free schedule while respecting room capacities and possibly balancing section sizes. That study was concerned with
the phase of assigning students to classes already scheduled, which is the phase that follows after assigning teachers
to rooms, times or classes in the context of the FIE.UPB.Bga. A combinatorial formulation of the problem was
proposed; for which some preprocessing of the data was performed to create a matrix of sections conflicting in time.
A binary decision variable was used to represent if a student is scheduled into a section of a course. Three sets of
constraints were defined: for each course selected by a student corresponds exactly one section of that course, there
cannot be conflicts on the schedule of a student and the maximum size of each section cannot be exceeded. The
problem was proven to be NP-complete, two alternative models based on the integral multi commodity flow
problem were introduced and a discussion about how four objectives could be considered was presented: to
maximize the number of courses assigned, to maximize the number of timeslots assigned, hence the occupation level
of the students, to minimize the number of students with incomplete schedules and to move the size constraints in
the objective function.

The ATP has been addressed from the perspective of the student as well. For example, a study on the population
and timetabling problem; in which there may be multiple classes of each subject and the decision on which students
are to constitute each class is made in concert with the decision on the timetable for each class [2]. In contrast with
the case of the FIE.UPB.Bga, this study assumes that rooms are not a scarce resource and ignores the room
allocation aspect of timetabling. The Population and Class Timetabling Problem (PCTP) is claimed to be the most
complete form of the ATP and a quite general form of it is considered for a high school context. The problem is
decomposed in two problems: the class blocking and population problem (CBPP) and the block timetabling problem
(BTP). The paper addresses the CBPP as a feasibility problem that aims to find a clash free solution by determining
the blocks and populating the classes; each block is used to represent a set of classes. A timetable is defined as an
assignment of each lesson to a session of the timetable for all lessons of all classes of all subjects. The teacher
assigned duties are also assumed to be defined a priori. For a given teacher the subjects and number of classes of
each subject to be taught are determined beforehand; in contrast with the case of the FIE.UPB.Bga, in which only
the courses for a teacher are defined beforehand and the number of sections are defined during the solution process.
The outcome of the timetabling process is a set of class populations for each class of each subject and the sessions in
which the lessons of each class will be held. It is also assumed that all classes require the same number of lessons.
Blocking is essentially a heuristic idea which restricts the solution space of the PCTP so that it can be decomposed.

Another study which investigated the AT from the students perspective addressed the course assignment problem in
the Department of Industrial Design at TU Eindhoven [7]. Two problem definitions were studied; the first yields a
tractable problem whereas the second does not. A complete case study on the second formulation is performed for
which four integer programming models were proposed and lexicographic optimization was used. The context in
which the ATP was investigated results significantly different from the context of the FIE.UPB.Bga, as in TU
Eindhoven every student hands in a preference list of at most 10 courses and requests a certain number of courses
 Acosta-Amado, Villa-Marulanda, García-Díaz, Atuahene and Lacera-Cortés
and the courses are already timetabled. This seems to be a completely different situation to the one addressed in this
paper; which is interesting as it is another example of the wide diversity of contexts in which the ATP can arise.
The goal in this case was to assign as many courses to students as possible, while the number of courses did not
exceed the requested number of courses, the courses assigned to a student were in his or her preference list and did
not conflict in time, and no course exceeds its maximum number of students. For problem formulation two, the
condition that every course must have a minimum number of students to be opened was added and it resulted in a
more complex problem. The model was reported to be successfully applied to the academic year 2005-2006 to the
department of industrial design of TU Eindhoven.

Most of the previous studies on NF models for the ATP have addressed the high school context and describe a
problem situation with significant differences with respect to the ATP of the FIE.UPB.Bga. Another important
portion of the relevant literature has focused its attention in studying the mathematical complexity and
characteristics of classic NF models to solve the ATP problem. More work is needed using this type of solution
approach due to the versatility of NF models to represent complex systems even when their network structures are
not obvious and because of their solution advantages as well [11]. Moreover, the case of the ATP in a university
context has received limited attention using network models and the conditions of the FIE.UPB.Bga context have
not been clearly stated as part of the previous problem definitions.

4. A MCNF Formulation for the ATP

The system object of this study is represented with a MCNF model with a set of side constraints with five layers of
nodes; as shown in Figure 1, in which the source nodes represent the faculty members included in the timetable and
is replicated in the third layer of nodes of the network. The sink nodes represent every possible combination of day
and time slot when a session of any course delivered by a given faculty member can be offered. The second layer of
nodes represents the courses or subjects to be delivered during the corresponding semester. There is a gain factor 𝐺𝐺𝑖𝑖
in the arcs linking the source nodes and this set of nodes representing the number of different sections of a course
that has to be offered in order to fulfill its demand. The third layer of intermediate nodes is the same set of nodes
corresponding to the source nodes representing the instructors and is included in the network to represent the
number of sections of every course each instructor is going to deliver. The fourth layer of intermediate nodes
represents the classrooms that are available to deliver classes. The terminal nodes of the network represent the
different day-time slot combinations in which classes can be timetabled. The flow between the source nodes and the
second layer of nodes represent whether an instructor is assigned to deliver a course or not. The flow between the
second and the third layer of nodes represent the number of groups of every course each instructor is going to
deliver. The flow between the third and fourth layers of nodes represents the number of times each classroom is
assigned during the week to the sections of every course delivered by every instructor. Once the flow from the
source nodes to the fourth layer of nodes has established the instructor for each course and the number of sections of
that course s/he is going to deliver as well as the classroom in which classes will be offered, the flow between the
fourth layer of nodes and the sink nodes finally completes the timetable by choosing the day and time slot the
sections of a given course delivered by a given instructor in a given classroom are going to take place.

Instructor Course Instructor Classroom Day-Time Slot

1 G1 1 δ1 1 1 1

Gi δ1
Gc
δ1

G1 δi
j Gi i δi j k lm
Gc
δi

G1 δc
Gi δc

P Gc C δc P S 37

Figure 1: General Network Structure

 Acosta-Amado, Villa-Marulanda, García-Díaz, Atuahene and Lacera-Cortés

The corresponding mathematical formulation for the network sketched in Figure 2 is presented below.

Scalars
𝐶𝐶: Number of courses to be timetabled
𝐼𝐼: Number of available faculty members to deliver the courses
𝑆𝑆: Number of available classrooms to deliver the courses
𝐻𝐻: Number of available time slots during the week to develop the timetable.

Sets
Θ = {1, 2, … , 𝐶𝐶}: Courses to deliver
Ι = {1, 2, … , 𝑃𝑃}: Instructors available
Κ = {1, 2, … , 𝑆𝑆}: Classrooms available
Λ = {1,2, … ,6} Days of the week available
Μ = {1, 2, … , 𝐹𝐹}: Timeslots during the day to timetable classes
𝛼𝛼𝑖𝑖 : set of faculty members that can deliver course 𝑖𝑖
𝛽𝛽𝑗𝑗 : set of courses that can be delivered by instructor 𝑗𝑗
𝛾𝛾𝑗𝑗 : set of classrooms that can be used to deliver course 𝑗𝑗

Parameters:
𝐺𝐺𝑖𝑖 : Number of sections of course 𝑖𝑖 to be offered
𝛿𝛿𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖 : Gain factor for the arc (𝑖𝑖, 𝑗𝑗) representing the weekly number of two hour time slots required for course 𝑖𝑖

Decision Variables
1 𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖 𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐 𝑖𝑖 𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖 𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑 𝑏𝑏𝑏𝑏 𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖 𝑗𝑗
𝑢𝑢𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖 = �
0 𝑂𝑂𝑂𝑂ℎ𝑒𝑒𝑒𝑒𝑒𝑒𝑒𝑒𝑒𝑒𝑒𝑒
𝑥𝑥𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖 = 𝑁𝑁𝑁𝑁𝑁𝑁𝑁𝑁𝑁𝑁𝑁𝑁 𝑜𝑜𝑜𝑜 𝑔𝑔𝑔𝑔𝑔𝑔𝑔𝑔𝑔𝑔𝑔𝑔 𝑜𝑜𝑜𝑜 𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐 𝑖𝑖 𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑 𝑏𝑏𝑏𝑏 𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐 𝑗𝑗
𝑦𝑦𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖 = 𝑁𝑁𝑁𝑁𝑁𝑁𝑁𝑁𝑁𝑁𝑁𝑁 𝑜𝑜𝑜𝑜 𝑡𝑡𝑡𝑡𝑡𝑡𝑡𝑡𝑡𝑡 𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐 𝑘𝑘 𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖 𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎 𝑡𝑡𝑡𝑡 𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐 𝑖𝑖 𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑 𝑏𝑏𝑏𝑏 𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖 𝑗𝑗
1𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖 𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐 𝑖𝑖 𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖 𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑 𝑏𝑏𝑏𝑏 𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖 𝑗𝑗 𝑜𝑜𝑜𝑜 𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐 𝑘𝑘 𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖 𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑 𝑙𝑙 𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑 𝑡𝑡𝑡𝑡𝑡𝑡𝑡𝑡𝑡𝑡𝑡𝑡𝑡𝑡𝑡𝑡 𝑚𝑚
𝑧𝑧𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖 = �
0 𝑂𝑂𝑂𝑂ℎ𝑒𝑒𝑒𝑒𝑒𝑒𝑒𝑒𝑒𝑒𝑒𝑒

Objective Function:
𝑀𝑀𝑀𝑀𝑀𝑀𝑀𝑀𝑀𝑀𝑀𝑀𝑀𝑀𝑀𝑀𝑀𝑀𝑀𝑀 = ∑𝑖𝑖 ∑𝑗𝑗 ∑𝑘𝑘 ∑𝑙𝑙 �𝑧𝑧𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖 1 + 𝑧𝑧𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖 4 + 𝑧𝑧𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖 7 � (1)
Subject to
∑𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖 𝛽𝛽𝑗𝑗 𝑢𝑢𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖 ≥ 1, ∀ 𝑗𝑗 ∈ Ι (2)
𝑥𝑥𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖 − 𝐺𝐺𝑖𝑖 𝑢𝑢𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖 ≤ 0, ∀ 𝑖𝑖 ∈ Θ, 𝑗𝑗 ∈ 𝛼𝛼𝑖𝑖 (3)
∑𝑘𝑘𝑘𝑘 𝛾𝛾 𝑗𝑗 𝑦𝑦𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖 − 𝛿𝛿𝑖𝑖 𝑥𝑥𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖 = 0, ∀ 𝑖𝑖 ∈ Θ, 𝑗𝑗 ∈ 𝛼𝛼𝑖𝑖 (4)
∑6𝑙𝑙=1 ∑𝐻𝐻
𝑚𝑚 =1 𝑧𝑧𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖 − 𝑦𝑦𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖 = 0, ∀ 𝑖𝑖 ∈ Θ, 𝑗𝑗 ∈ 𝛼𝛼𝑖𝑖 , 𝑘𝑘 ∈ 𝛾𝛾𝑗𝑗 (5)
∑𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖Θ ∑𝑗𝑗𝑗𝑗 𝛼𝛼 𝑖𝑖 𝑧𝑧𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖 ≤ 1, ∀ 𝑘𝑘 ∈ Κ, 𝑙𝑙𝑙𝑙Λ, 𝑚𝑚𝑚𝑚Μ (6)
∑𝑗𝑗 ∈𝛼𝛼 𝑖𝑖 𝑢𝑢𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖 ≥ 1, ∀ 𝑖𝑖 ∈ Θ (7)
∑𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖 𝛽𝛽𝑗𝑗 𝑢𝑢𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖 ≤ 3, ∀ 𝑗𝑗 ∈ Ι (8)
∑𝑗𝑗 ∈𝛼𝛼 𝑖𝑖 𝑥𝑥𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖 = 𝐺𝐺𝑖𝑖 , 𝑖𝑖 ∈ Θ (9)
𝐶𝐶 𝑆𝑆 𝑚𝑚 +2
∑𝑖𝑖=1 ∑𝑘𝑘=1 ∑𝑛𝑛=𝑚𝑚 𝑧𝑧𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖 ≤ 2, ∀ 𝑗𝑗 ∈ Ι, 𝑙𝑙 ∈ {1,2, … ,6}, 𝑚𝑚 ∈ {1,2, … ,7} (10)

Equation 1 represents the objective function that seeks to minimize the use of extreme timeslots to timetable classes;
there are three time slots that are generally considered to be extreme and undesirable to deliver classes: 6.00am-
8.00am, 12.00m-2.00pm and 6.00pm-8.00pm. The constraints of this model are classified in two types: the
constraints for the conservation of flow in the five layers of nodes of the network (2-6) and the side constraints (7-
11). Set of constraints 2 enforces that, for every faculty member, at least one course must be assigned, among the
set of courses s/he can deliver. The purpose of set of constraints 3 is twofold: first, to enforce that in order for a
faculty member to deliver a certain number of sections of a given course, that course must be assigned before to that
faculty member; and second, it also enforces that the number of sections a faculty member is assigned of a course
s/he is going to deliver do not up cross the number of sections to be offered for that course. Equation 4 enforces that
the number of times a given classroom is assigned to a given course delivered by its respective instructor
 Acosta-Amado, Villa-Marulanda, García-Díaz, Atuahene and Lacera-Cortés
corresponds to the number of sections and weekly two hour meetings required for that subject. Equation 5 enforces
that for every instructor, each section of every course offered in the corresponding classroom will be assigned a day
and a timeslot during that day for the session to occur. Overlapping on the timetable is avoided with set of
constraints 6. Equation 7 enforces that for every course at least one instructor will be assigned. Equation 8
guarantees that no more than three courses will be assigned to every instructor. Equation 9 enforces that the total
number of sections of a given course assigned to the different instructors delivering that course is equal to the total
number of sections that must be offered for that course. The condition of no instructor will be timetabled more than
four hours in a single block is enforced with the set of constraints represented by 10.

5. Application to an Actual Scenario

The data corresponds to the second semester of year 2013 in which it was necessary to timetable 128 sections of 42
different courses, from the professional and majoring area portions of the curriculum, that were delivered by 41
faculty members; 23 fulltime and 18 adjunct, in 42 classrooms. There are three important remarks worth noting
about the modeled situation and the model itself; which are discussed in the next paragraph.

First, it was assumed that the adjunct faculty members do not have any constraint regarding their availability during
the week to deliver classes; which might have contributed to create a less restricted scenario from the actual case and
might have also impacted the required computational time and the optimal objective function value obtained.
Nonetheless, this can be addressed by a slight modification of the members of a set of sub-indexes of the model
corresponding to these faculty members and the time they are available to impart classes; neither does it require to
add more variables nor does it require to add more constraints. Second, the processes laboratory, a subject that must
be taken during the sixth semester of the program, can only be timetabled in Friday from 12.00-18.00, as it is
delivered in the campus of an allied governmental institution; which is located 40 minutes driving from the
UPB.Bga campus. As a consequence, no other course of the sixth semester of the program can be timetabled during
the 10.00-12.00 time slot on Friday so then students have enough time to travel between the two campuses. In order
to address this, a simple modification of the members of the corresponding sets of the model is required; and as in
the previous case, neither does it require the addition of new variables nor does it require the addition of new
constraints to the model. Third, although some courses have a laboratory session during the week that has special
requirements for the classroom in which it has to be timetabled; a condition that is not included in the current
version of the model, only about 3 out of every 10 courses did not fulfill this constraint in the obtained timetable for
the actual scenario considered.

The model generated for this particular case had 5160 equations, including the objective function; and 1365655
integer variables, including the variable corresponding to the objective function. It took the GAMS/CPLEX solver
11.48 seconds to solve this model in a machine with a 32 bits operating system, an Intel® CoreTM 2 Duo processor at
3.00 GB and four GB of RAM. The model was solved to optimality and the objective function value obtained was
2; which means that only 2 blocks of two hours of class were scheduled in extreme timeslots; a tremendous decrease
when compared with the 75 two-hour time slots obtained when timetabling the actual case for that semester.

6. Conclusions
The use of NF formulations for solving the ATP has already been investigated with important contributions on the
study of the proposed models and their complexity for a general definition of the problem [3], [8]; and to address the
ATP for the high school system of North America [4]. Other studies have concentrated in using NF models coupled
with heuristic procedures to solve the ATP in a graduate school context [5] and a high school context [6] in the
United States and Switzerland, respectively. The problem has also been investigated from the perspective of the
student; either in concert with the definition of the timetable of the courses [2] or assuming that a timetable for the
courses and the faculty members has already been defined [7], and concentrating on the problem of populating the
courses with students.

In spite of the important previous research work on the use of NF formulations for the ATP, a context like the one of
the FIE.UPB.Bga for the ATP has not been clearly defined in the previous research work using NF formulations to
address this problem. Important details of this context have been included in this paper; which are clearly missing in
the previous relevant literature. In this paper, a MCNF formulation was proposed and applied for a real set of data
that came from the second semester of year 2013. Although some additional requirements have to be included in the
proposed model, there was a remarkable 97% decrease in the number of two-hour extreme timeslots with respect to
 Acosta-Amado, Villa-Marulanda, García-Díaz, Atuahene and Lacera-Cortés
the actual timetable implemented in that semester and it was also obtained in less than 12 seconds; which is another
dramatic improvement with respect to the more than 12 weeks required to solve this problem with the approach
currently used.

The new challenge is to include additional features in the model in order to tune it up and to prepare for the
implementation process for which it will be necessary to present the model, explain it to the involved staff in a way
that must be easy to understand for them as they are not informed OR audience, and then having them accepting the
model by presenting more results of computational experiments based on real scenarios from the previous five years
they had to solve manually using a computationally expensive heuristic procedure implemented by hand with the aid
of a spreadsheet. Once they understand and accept the model, its implementation will be a viable endeavor.

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