Professor Michael Trick
Graduate School of Industrial Administration - Carnegie Mellon
University
Adventures in Sports Scheduling -
Friday, March 19, 1999 1:35 P.M. E104
Abstract : Three years ago, I was approached to use combinatorial
optimization techniques to create possible schedules for Major League Baseball.
This project, which I estimated to take a month, has continued to this
day. The methods I have developed use techniques like network flows,
matching, integer programming, constraint programming, and heuristic
search. The resulting system finds good schedules reasonably
quickly and is flexible enough to handle the often contradictory constraints
and objectives desired by real sporting leagues. These methods have
also been used to schedule college basketball leagues, including the Atlantic
Coast Conference men's and women's leagues.