A heuristic approach to constraint optimization in timetabling

Abstract

Timetabling is a difficult (NP-complete) problem and belongs to a general class of problems known as scheduling. Due to a variety of constraints typical in different timetabling environments, it has been difficult to develop a generic solution for timetabling. This paper is an attempt to define a generic computational model for examination timetabling for predefined constraints found in the problem, and proposes a heuristic method of developing an acceptable solution. The declarative nature of the developed constraints language (based on the structured query language) is utilized to construct constraints and specify the timetabling problem as a constraint satisfaction problem. A university examination timetabling problem is used to illustrate and test the model.