5f05ca25_on_and_Planning_Research_Group__Description
[Research Theme] Office Space Allocation. [Description] 
The office space allocation problem refers to the allocation of entities to the available office space. Entities can be people (e.g. staff, research students, etc.) or 'functions' (e.g. meeting room, utility room, toilet, etc.). The available office space is usually a set of physical rooms within a building. Each entity requires certain office space (i.e. floor area) and each room has certain capacity (i.e. room size). There are additional requirements that limit the way in which the entities can be allocated to the rooms. For example, certain entities must not share a room with another entitiy or certain entities should be allocated to the same or 'nearby' rooms as other entities. The problem is then to assign each entity to a room in such as way that the utilisation of the available office space is maximised while considering the additional requirements. This is very difficult combinatorial optimisation problem given its highly constrained nature (the additional requirements). We have investigated this problem for several years now including the modelling and understanding of the problem as well as the development of mathematical programming, heuristic and metaheuristic techniques to solve it effectively and efficiently.
Research Themes | Automated Scheduling, Optimisation and Planning Research Group
Description