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The LA Fox Developer Newsletter
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October 1999
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Scheduling Concepts
(Con’t from page 7)
The solution approach that I used was to create a database table with a field for the member names and fields for each of the duties. The duties were speaker, evaluator, timer, toastmaster, and chief evaluator. The BUSY field would be set to True once the person was assigned a duty or would be out for that meeting. The dates of the last time that person had the duty were entered for each duty. Then, I indexed the table one each duty for “BUSY
=
.F.”. In this case, it is indexed on SPEAKER. The people who have not been speakers for the longest time will be at the top of the table. They get scheduled for speaker and the dates in the SPEAKER field get changed to the date of the meeting and the BUSY field gets changed to True for them. Then, it is on to the next duty.
See how easy that was?
In a second FoxPro application, I helped a client address a queuing problem involving the scheduling of candidates and assessors in an assessment center. The problem was that this consulting company needed to test a number of employee candidates for promotion. Each candidate is evaluated by assessors as they complete four “assessment center exercises”, which included performing a variety of “staged” or simulated situations.
The first scheduling issue is how to maximize an assessor’s time. The easiest, is to have all the candidates come in first thing in the morning and wait until an assessment room or area is free. The problem with this approach is that the candidates are spending a lot of unnecessary time waiting. This is how the Army scheduled people when I was on active duty. We were told to “hurry-up and wait”. A better approach is to have an algorithm that focuses on giving a candidate priority once they start the first process and then they can complete all the exercises as quickly as possible. Once that is accomplished the program can look at what time each candidate started the first process and tell them to get there 15 minutes early. This approach works well until the end of the day. At the end of the day there are not enough candidates in the queue to keep the assessment centers busy. So, there wi!l be periods of down time for the assessment centers. This can be fixed by getting the last three candidates to start their first process earlier. Having the last three candidates spend a little more time is the simplest way to keep the assessment centers busy.
Conclusion
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Ret 88064
I am a technical recruiting specialist with Headway Technology Resources in Newport Beach. Through a general internet search, I found your name and email address. A very exciting client of mine is looking for a Visual FoxPro (ver 6.0) programmer. The following is a list of information for this position:
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Customizing ERP Software
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Accounting knowledge required
I
Manufacturing helpful
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Company is located in Orange County
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=Min. 2-3 years experience requested
This company has developed software for the manufactunng industry. Their clients request customization of the purchased software. Please let me know if you possibly know anyone that might be interested in a position as a VFP programmer. Thank you for your time.
Sue Webster
(949) 260-9406,
SWebster@headwaycorp.com
Scheduling Concepts
(Con’t from adj. column)
scheduling, you are ready to take them to the next level, the real world. You can now use “Container Theory” to help UPS schedule the best way to fill their trucks and airplanes. And while your at it, you can use “Network Theory” to schedule the route for their trucks. Lastly, you can use “Queuing Theory” to schedule their employee shifts.
You can also combine these concepts into sophisticated approaches to problems. I think the best examples of this are the MRP (Materials Requirement Planning) systems for manufacturering, which utilize all three of the above concepts. These MRP systems have evolved from letting the purchasing department know what to order and the shop floor what to build to managing the total organization. In my estimation they represent one of mankind’s greatest achievements.
[Ed. Note: Joe Pecukonis is an independent consultant and member of the Rocky Mountain FoxPro user group. He specializes in both Integer programming and Linear programming with FoxPro. This includes creating scheduling software including manufacturing MRP systems and scientific uses for FoxPro. His email address is “JoePec@aol.com” and his home page is
http://mwmbers.aol.com/joepec/index.htm.]
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