Program

Designing Conferences to Improve Resource Utilization and Participant Satisfaction
Author(s): Scott E. Sampson and Elliott N. Weiss

Source: The Journal of the Operational Research Society, Vol. 47, No. 2 (Feb., 1996), pp. 297314
Published by: Palgrave Macmillan Journals on behalf of the Operational Research Society
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Journal of the OperationalResearchSociety (1996) 47, 297-314
1996 Operational
Research
SocietyLtd.All rightsreserved.
0160-5682/96$12.00
Designing Conferences to Improve Resource

Utilization and Participant Satisfaction
SCOTT E. SAMPSON' and ELLIOTT N. WEISS2
College of Business, Florida State University and
Darden Graduate School of Business, University of Virginia
We look at a conference scheduling problem with the objective of maximizing the ability of participants
to attend sessions of interest. This problem was addressed in an article by Eglese and Rand; conference
scheduling has otherwise received little attention in management science literature. Related problems of
class- and exam-scheduling have been extensively studied and published, yet few cases consider participant (e.g. student) preferences. Our formulation, which a variation of that used by Eglese and Rand,
includes prioritized preferences for conference sessions, as well as schedule resource constraints. The
purpose of this paper is to extend the previous work by exploring the impact of various scheduling
decisions on participant satisfaction (measured by enrollment in desired sessions). We use a previously
published algorithm to look at issues such as conference length and make general observations that may
aid the conference-scheduling decision maker.
Key words: conference planning, simulation, timetabling
INTRODUCTION
High attendance at professional conferences, in spite of the often large investment in both time
and money, is an indication of the perceived value participants place on conference attendance.
However, participants often experience frustration with the way the conference sessions are scheduled. These participants may not be able to attend a session(s) of interest because of (a) a schedule
conflict in which another session of interest is scheduled at the same time period, or (b) a capacity
constraint in which the session is so full that there is no space available. One might respond,
'That's the way it goes', which is not likely to satisfy the conference participant who incurred
great expense to be at the conference and attend sessions.
In this paper we discuss some insights into the conference design process which we obtained
from an investigation of the relationship of participant satisfaction and the conference configuration. Even attaining a resourcefeasible schedule, regardless of optimality, can be a formidable
task. Ad hoc approaches are commonplace. For example, conversations with the scheduler of a
recent management science conference revealed that the way he accomplished this task was to
write the session descriptions on 3 x 5 cards, then arrange the cards on a large table. The scheduler attempted to address the potential desires of participants attending the conference by scheduling tracks across time periods. Therefore, if a participant was only interested in one track he or
she would not experience any schedule conflicts. Traditionally popular tracks might have been
assigned to larger rooms in an attempt to avoid exceeding seating capacities. This approach is
suboptimal when (a) participants are interested in sessions from multiple (possible related) tracks,
and/or (b) the scheduler is unable to accurately predict the attendance at various sessions.
A more rigorous approach to conference scheduling might include collecting data on participant's interests in the various sessions, then using that data to generate the schedule. This was the
approach Eglese and Rand' took in one of the few published research papers involving conference
scheduling. The underlying assumption is that the expense of conference attendance would motivate many participants to respond to a session interest survey, as was realized in Eglese and
Rand's study. They were successful in utilizing the data to heuristically generate a schedule which
maximized participant satisfaction.
In addition to generating the actual schedule, a major part of designing a conference is determining the amount of each resource to make available. Some of the resources represent decision
Correspondence:S. E. Sampson,College of Business, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32306-1042, USA

298
Journalof the OperationalResearchSociety Vol. 47, No.2
factors under the control of the scheduling decision maker. For example, the decision-maker may
need to decide whether to increase the number of offerings of popular sessions, how long the
conference should be, and/or how many rooms of various sizes to reserve. For each of these
decisions, costs and benefits need to be considered, including those incurred in terms of participant satisfaction.
Also, the decision maker may desire to know what alternatives exist for dealing with resources
which are fixed. For example, if a conference has a fixed number of sessions and a fixed length, yet
many participants complain about scheduling conflicts, how might the scheduler decrease the
likelihood of conflicts?
In this paper we extend the previous research by considering a variety of scheduling resource
allocation issues. Although many issues may be addressed, we specifically consider four questions
which may be faced by a scheduling decision maker:
Question 1.
What tradeoffs exist betwen (a) the length of the conference, (b) the number of offerings per
session, and (c) participant satisfaction (as measured by enrollment in preferredsessions)?
Question 2.
What sensitivity does participant satisfaction have to room availability? What constitutes an
adequate 'safety stock' of rooms?
Question 3.
Is it necessary to have a T period conference, when participants only want to attend R sessions
(R < T)?
Question 4.
What constitutes good seating capacity utilization? What is an appropriate amount of 'safety
seating capacity?'
We will explore these questions by analyzing randomly generated problems of specified sizes.
For the present study, we assume that the content of sessions has been determined a priori. A task
of the conference scheduler is to assign the offerings of the various sessions to rooms and time
periods.
The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. In the next section we present a review of
the timetabling, class-scheduling and conference-scheduling literature. Subsequently, we provide
our mathematical programming formulation for the preference-based scheduling problem we wish
to solve. We then present our data generator and our experimental design for the numerical
investigations we perform. The penultimate section contains our results and insights, and finally
we offer a summary, conclusions and ideas for future research.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Other than the Eglese and Rand paper, conference scheduling per se has received almost no
attention in management science literature. However, related problems have received considerable
attention. Class scheduling, also called timetabling, involves the assignment of classes to time
periods. Some authors assume that the schedule is established prior to the enrollment of students
in classes2-6. Once the schedule is established, separate procedures can be used to enroll students
in classes7-11
Other timetabling articles assume that the students are enrolled in classes prior to the time the
class schedule is generated12-'9. This is similar to the exam scheduling problem in education,
which is to assign final exams to time periods to avoid students having conflicting exams22026.
The above approaches solve either the timetabling or the enrollment problem independently of
the other problem. Although the result may be a schedule or enrollment which is of itself optimal,
the solution is likely to be sub-optimal relative to the other problem. In only a few articles is the

S. E.Sampson
andE.N.Weiss-Designing Conferences
299
joint problem considered. Ferland and Fleurent27, Aubin and Ferland28, and Hertz29 approach
the joint scheduling-enrollment problem by iteratively focusing on each of the sub-problems while
holding the other sub-problem fixed. However, no consideration is made for the prioritization of
student requests for courses.
Eglese and Rand' consider the joint problem of scheduling and enrolling in a conference scheduling environment. They solve a problem based on an actual conference with 265 participants
requesting enrollment in five out of fifteen sessions with multiple offerings. The requests are prioritized by ranking. Since the conference has four time periods, the fifth request acts as an alternate. The objective function was effectively a sum of rankings of granted requests for sessions.
They solve the problem by imbedding an enrollment algorithm within a search heuristic, which is
similar to our approach30. The Eglese and Rand results were very good, illustrating the potential
for jointly generating the schedule and the enrollment solutions. Their paper reported on a specific
application of their algorithm, rather than focusing on general conference design issues.
We previously extended the Eglese and Rand approach to conference scheduling by allowing
sessions to have finite seating capacities30. This required a redesigned solution procedure that
addresses the increased complexity of the problem constraints. The procedure used was shown to
be as effective and efficient as the Eglese and Rand procedure, even with the additional constraint
complexity.
Sampson, Freeland and Weiss31 successfully employed the algorithm in an actual curriculum
timetabling situation. In that paper the authors viewed the system constraints length of the
curriculum, number of rooms, number of sessions as fixed and assigned sessions to rooms and
time periods in such a way as to maximize the student satisfaction. In this paper, we investigate
the sensitivity of customer satisfaction to the availability of resources and the decision variables
facing a conference scheduler as described in the introduction.
FORMULATION
We assume a problem in which the conference participants (those attending the sessions) each
request a specific number of prioritized sessions. For simplicity we assume that each participant
requests the same number of sessions, designated RPP (requests per participant). We assume all
participants rank their requests from 1 (least important) to RPP (most important). These rank
values are recorded in a parameter matrix PREFp . (the preference ranking participant p specifies
for conference session s).
We define a binary decision variable set Ep S t that will be 1 if participant p is enrolled in session
s at time period t, otherwise 0. Our objective is to maximize the enrollment of participants in their
high ranking sessions, which can be represented by the following objective function.
max E PREFP, .Ep,t
(l)
p, s, t
We only create Ep,S,t variables where corresponding PREFP, parameters have been specified.
Other constraints on the enrollment variables include the following. A participant can only be in
one place at a time:
EEp, S,t < 1
Vp, t
(2)
Participants will not be enrolled in the same session more than once:
E Ep,S,t
_< 1
Vp,
(3)
We define another set of decision variables for keeping track of when offerings are scheduled. This
binary variable matrix S., t will be 1 if an offering of session s is scheduled at time t, otherwise 0.
For simplicity in generating random problems we assume that all rooms are of equal capacity, as
represented by the parameter ROOMCAP. Sampson, Freeland and Weiss3' describe a modified
formulation and report solutions for problems with varying room capacities. Again, this explicit
consideration of finite capacities is one extension of Eglese and Rand's paper. In the formulation,

300
Journal of the OperationalResearchSociety Vol. 47, No.2
enrollments must be within the capacities of scheduled sessions:

E Ep,s,t < Ss tROOMCAP
Vs, t
(4)
We consider cases where popular sessions may be repeated during the conference, as did Eglese
and Rand. However, they considered the number of offerings of each session to be a decision
variable, whereas we consider it a problem parameter. Nevertheless, we will later describe comparisons of solutions resulting from various values of this parameter. In the formulation, the
number of offerings of session s during the conference will be recorded as OFFERINGSS, and we
have:
ZSs t =
Vs
OFFERINGSS
(5)
Sessions with common moderators/presenters cannot be scheduled in the same time period, since
the moderators can only be in one place at a time. We define Smas the subset of sessions involving
moderator/presenter m. (In the tests described in the next section, we avoid additional complexity
by assuming that each moderator is only involved with one session.)
E Ss,t SE
Vm, t
(6)
Sm
We assume that the conference planner has scheduled a number of rooms to be used during the
conference, designated by the parameter ROOMS. Therefore we have:
E Ss,t < ROOMS
Vt
(7)
A final constraint is implied by our definition of variables:
Ep,S,t-{
SS,
(8)
{, 10}
This formulation is not unimodular, preventing the use of linear programming, and is combinatoric. After exploring a number of solution alternatives it was determined that an efficient
heuristic solution technique was in order. A heuristic procedure was developed and extensively
tested, producing solutions which are generally within 1% of optimal solutions. The procedure
and test results are described in detail elsewhere30. That heuristic procedure is used herein to
explore managerial issues via problem simulation.
PROBLEM GENERATOR AND EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN

We define three parameters which indicate the number of sessions (SES), the number of conference participants (PAR) and the number of time periods (TIM). We define a parameter OPS
which specifies the average number of offerings per session. If OPS is an integer we set
OFFERINGS, = OPS Vs. If OPS is non-integer then OFFERINGS, values are set so that some
of the sessions will have one more offering than the others, with an average of OPS. Thus we have
arbitrarily spread out the offerings per session.
For each participant, RPP sessions are randomly selected and ranked. The probability of a
participant selecting session s will be proportional to OFFERINGS,. We explored the idea of
functional grouping of participants, indicating that participants would tend to cluster in related
sessions, causing correlation of memberships of those sessions. The effectiveness of our heuristic
procedure was only minutely diminished by functional grouping (average solution quality
decreased less than two-tenths of 1% when compared with the quality of solutions with no functional grouping). However some results, e.g. the best length for a conference, are affected by this
factor. Nevertheless, a full exploration of the effect of different forms of functional grouping would
substantially increase the length of this paper. For the experiments in this article we 'turned off'
the grouping parameters of the problem generator, resulting in no programmed group member-

S. E.Sampson
301
ship bias in session preference selection. This should be borne in mind when interpreting the
results.
In a subsequent section we will explore problem sensitivity to changes in room availability.
Rather than specify the ROOMS parameter directly, we specify a more general room utilization
parameter (RMU). RMU will indicate the average percent of rooms occupied during each period
of the conference. The ROOMS parameter can be derived as follows:
x OPS
ROOMS 0 SES x RMU 1
ROOMS
IM
Finally we need to determine the capacity of the rooms. Again, rather than specify an absolute
ROOMCAP value we will specify a value that represents capacity utilization (CPU). CPU indicates the percent of total seating capacity expected to be occupied. ROOMCAP is derived as
follows:
x
ROOMCAP = rPAR min(RPP, TIM)]
M
OPS x SES x CPU
In the following section we will study solution sensitivity to specific changes in problem parameters. The hypothetical conference will have the base case parameters listed in Table 1. These base
values were devised to be similar in problem size to the real problems described by Sampson,
Freeland and Weiss3' and Eglese and Rand'. We have successfully applied our solution procedure
to larger problems, and are confident that the results presented herein are generalizable.
TABLE 1. Base parameters
Parameter
Mnemonic
Number of sessions
Average offerings per session
Number of participants
Requests per participant
Average capacity utilization
Number of time periods
Average room utilization
SES
OPS
PAR
RPP
CPU
TIM
RMU
Base case value

10
2
250
4
50%0,
6
75%
EXPERIMENTS AND RESULTS

Reducing participantschedule conflicts
Question 1.
What tradeoffs exist between (a) the length of the conference, (b) the number of offerings per
session, and (c) participant satisfaction (as measured by enrollment in preferredsessions)?
There are two reasons why a participant at a conference would be unable to attend a desired
session: (1) two or more of the sessions requested by a participant are at the same time period
(schedule conflict), or (2) the number of participants who requested a session exceeds the session
capacity (capacity conflict).
Managing capacity conflicts is the topic of Question 4. The focus of this section is schedule
conflicts. To separate the effects of capacity conflicts we will temporarily assume unlimited room
capacities.
We see by inspection that there are two ways of assuring that no schedule conflicts occur. One
way is to increase the length of the conference such that there is only one session offering at each
time period (TIM = SES). Thus, it would be impossible for a schedule conflict to exist since no
participant would have two or more requested sessions at the same time. However, having one
session at each time period is a rather inefficient use of participants' time.
The other way to completely avoid the possibility of schedule conflicts is to provide an offering
of each session at each time period (OPS = TIM). Assuming that the number of time periods
exceeds the number of requests any participant made for sessions, the participants could attend

302
their desired sessions in any order. The session moderators are not likely to appreciate offering
their sessions at every time period, however. This would also require as many rooms as there are
sessions.
Thus we see that in the extreme all schedule conflicts can be eliminated by having SES time
periods or by having TIM offerings per session. We can suppose that, at the margin, the way to
avoid conflicts would be to increase the number of time periods (resulting in fewer sessions at each
time period) or by increasing the number of offerings of each session (increasing the alternative
ways of meeting participant requests). We will begin by testing these approaches separately, followed by a joint test.
Increasing offeringsper session
What is the potential impact of providing additional offerings of individual sessions? To answer
this question, we designed an experiment in which we hold all problem parameters at base values
except for OPS. Recall that the OPS parameter specifies the average number of offerings per
session. Therefore, OPS = 1.1 means that 9 of the sessions will have one offering, and one session
will have two offerings (11 offerings/10 sessions = 1.1 OPS). The problem generator is designed to
hold all parameters,such as RMU and CPU, constant when only OPS is changed.
Note that capacity utilization (CPU) is set to 50%, which is effectively considered to be unconstrained capacity (since there are twice as many seats as expected requests for those seats). Unconstrained capacity may exist in situations where facilities can be scheduled to meet any room
requirements. Results are shown in Figure 1. (For this and all figures, each plotted point represents the mean solution value of five generated problems.)
Observe from Figure 1 that increasing OPS results in a relatively monotonic increase in enrollment. (We assume that the drop at OPS = 1.7 and OPS = 1.9 is caused by randomness in
problem generation.) Note the degree of diminishing marginal returns on increased offerings. In a
real scheduling situation, it is likely that increasing OPS results in increasing marginal costs.
Therefore, subtracting the costs from the benefits will almost surely result in a concave net benefit
function, which implies that there will be an optimal OPS value (i.e., maximum net benefit). Determining that optimal value requires first specifying the cost function for increasing OPS.
(sample size = 5 problems each)
1000
980
960
r- 940
E
920
900
880-
A1
1.1
1.2
1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8

Offerings Per Session (OPS)
FIG. 1. Increasing the numberof offieringsper session.

1.9
1-
S. E.Sampson
303
Increasing conference length
The other method for avoiding schedule conflicts is to increase the conference length. For this
section, we only consider conference lengths such that TIM > RPP. The case where TIM < RPP
assures inherent dissatisfaction since we restrict participants to attending at most one session at
each time period by formulation constraint (2). We will consider only one offering per session
(OPS 1) and leave all other parameters at base values. Results are shown in Figure 2.
Increasing the number of time periods increases the number of met requests, however, with
apparent diminishing marginal returns. As the number of time periods increases, the potential for
participant schedule conflicts decreases, since fewer session offerings are scheduled at each time
period.
(sampl
size=
5 problems
each)
960
_ . ..*......_***.....
940
.-. ..- ....-...........-..-............

---.
-- _
.
920
900
_ ...
880
-.
860
|_
_..............
........
840-..__
820
. ...........
......
. ..
..
...................
-----
. .. . . .
7/-.
.... .
---
.. . ..... .. . ....................
---.
. ........._. .-_
. .....-.........
_.
............-..........
800-
- ____
-..............
780-L.
--.--.
-
760.b
- _----
._
.-..
Time Periods (TIM)

FIG. 2. Increasing conference length.
Interactions between OPS and TIM
From the prior two tests, we see that changes in either OPS or TIM will impact participant
satisfaction. In actual scheduling environments, it probably would be preferableto adjust some combination of the parameters to achieve acceptable enrollments. For this experiment we vary OPS
and TIM, and leave all other parameters at base values. Results are shown in Figure 3.
We observe that for any of the considered TIM values, increasing OPS results in decreasing
marginal benefit to met requests. The absolute benefit from increasing OPS is largest for the
shorter conferences. Also note that the TIM = 6 and TIM = 7 curves roughly converge at the
point OPS = 1.4. This leads us to believe that if we avoid schedule conflicts by increasing OPS,
there is less to be gained by also increasing TIM. In other words, the OPS and TIM parameters
interact to produce a decreasing marginal benefit to the enrollment. In order to optimize the
conference, the scheduler would need to consider the marginal costs of either lengthening the
conference or of requesting session moderators to offer their sessions more than once.
Adequate 'safety stock' of rooms
Question 2.
What sensitivitydoes participantsatisfactionhave to room availability?What constitutesan

adequate'safetystock'of rooms?

304

(sample
size = 5 problems
each)
1000-
900-.
850
750
..............
/--_
--.
~.
..
......
.__
1.1
1.2
Lin- TIM=4
1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8

OfferingsPer Session (OPS)
-
TIM=5
TIM=6
1.9
TIM=7
FIG. 3. Interactions between OPS and TIM.
Question 1 focused on the ability to directly improve the solutions to the enrollment problem.
Question 2 addresses the issue of room utilization (RMU), which may or may not affect the
quality of the enrollment problem solution. What potential impact could changes in RMU have
on the ability to enroll participants? When RMU approaches 100%, equation (7) of the formulation becomes tightly constrained. As such, the solution procedure has less flexibility in the assignment of sessions to time periods. In the extreme case of RMU = 100%, the number of session
offerings at each time period becomes fixed (since every room must be occupied during every time
period).
At the other extreme, if RMU is very small, then numerous vacant rooms will exist. There will
be a point of low room utilization at which any additional rooms (i.e., lower RMU) will result in
no additional marginal benefit. This is proved by observing that the number of rooms which will
be utilized at any time period has an upper bound equal to the number of offerings of sessions
(since the worst case is for all offerings to be scheduled at the same time period). Therefore, if the
number of rooms is increased beyond the total number of offerings, the additional rooms will be
assuredly vacant.
So, at one extreme we have a highly constrained problem, and at the other extreme we have a
completely unconstrained problem. Between these extremes we would expect diminishing marginal returns on additional rooms. Question 2 asks how quickly the marginal benefit drops off
between the constrained and unconstrained problems.
Sensitivity to changes in RMU
For this test, we will hold all parameters at base case values except for RMU. Results are shown
in Figure 4.
The only considered value of RMU which has a significant impact on enrollment results is
100%. This is the situation in which the number of session offerings exactly equals the number of
rooms. RMU = 100% caused the enrollment to decrease by approximately 20%, a significant
amount. This drop might be explained by two factors. First, there is no flexibility for the number

S. E.Sampson
305

1000-
950~9 500 #
____
. .... . _..___.....
..
..... . ............
E 85) 850-
.
.... .......................... ......._.
1-.-
--
------
--
800
750
100
95
90
65
85 80 75 70
Room Utilization(RMU)
60
55
50
FIG. 4. Sensitivity to changes in RMU.
of session offerings at each time period to vary. Perhaps even a small degree of flexibility will
allow more desirable enrollment results.
Second, as described elsewhere30, the effectiveness of the scheduling heuristic drops as RMU
approaches 100%. Therefore, the plot of the figure above may be attributable to the heuristic. By
that we mean that although a solution with few unmet requests (to RMU = 100% problems) may
exist, the heuristic is likely not capable to finding it.
TIM-ROOMS tradeoff
RMU is one way of describing/measuring the constraint tightness of the scheduling component of
the problem formulation. Another way of describing scheduling constraint tightness is slotutilization (SLU). We define a 'slot' as a room which exists at a particular time period. If 7 rooms
are available during 5 time periods each, we have 35 slots in which to schedule offerings of sessions. The composite parameter, SLOTS, is thus equal to the product of the TIM and ROOMS
parameters. The ROOMS parameter is defined as follows:
ROOMS=
SES x OPS
TIM x RMU
thus we have:
SLOTS = ROOMS x TIM = SES x OPS
RMU
which brings us to slot-utilization:

SLOTS

306
When testing the sensitivity of room utilization (in the previous sub-section), we took the TIM
parameter to be fixed, and adjusted the number of rooms. In this section, we will test the sensitivity to adjustments in slot-utilization, which is controlled by adjusting the number of time
periods and/or the number of rooms. This approach is illustrated by the following example.
Imagine a conference with 16 single-offering sessions to be scheduled over 4 time periods. Since
we have 16 session offerings we need at least 16 slots. If we have 4 rooms over 4 time periods, we
have a constrained problem with 100% SLU (which also is 100% RMU). If we increase the
number of time periods to 5, we have 4 x 5 = 20 slots. Another way to have 20 slots is to have a
fifth room at each of 4 time periods. Table 2 describes some possible slot combination.
TABLE 2. 'Slot' combinations
Rooms
4
5
6
7
Time periods
4
slots = 16
20
24
28
20
25
30
35
24
30
36
42
28
35
42
49
The issue of slot-utilization sensitivity is whether 5 rooms at 4 time periods is the same as 4
rooms at 5 time periods (since in either case, slots = 20). An alternate way to phrase this is: Are
additional rooms the same as additional time periods?
Since ROOMS is not a direct parameter of the problem generator, it is mapped into the RMU
parameter (which is directly specified) as follows:
RMU
SES x OPS
TIM
x< ROOMS
All other parameters are at base case values. Results are shown in Table 3.
TABLE 3. Enrollments for various slot counts
TIM
TIM
TIM
TIM
=
=
=
=
4
5
6
7
Rooms = 4
Rooms = 5
Rooms = 6
Rooms = 7
774 met req.

835
885
915
776
841
890
918
772
830
887
920
776
835
888
916
Note that for a fixed TIM, increasing ROOMS has little or no impact on the enrollment.
However, for a fixed ROOMS, increasing TIM causes a definite increase to the enrollment. This is
further seen in Figure 5.
Notice that the effect of increased TIM is the same regardless of ROOMS values.
We conclude that although TIM and ROOMS combine to make up a 'SLOTS' parameter, only
TIM has an impact on enrollment. This is consistent with the observation that increasing TIM
decreases the average number of offerings per time period, therefore decreasing the probability of
individual schedule conflicts. Increasing the number of rooms merely means we have a higher
average number of vacant rooms at each time period. We expect that more than a minimal
number of safety stock rooms would have little value.
Managing conference length
Question 3.
Is it necessary to have a T period conference, when participants only want to attend R sessions
(R < T)?
The results from Questions 1 and 2 seem to advocate increasing conference length as both a
way to avoid participant scheduling conflicts and as a way to relieve excessive room utilization.
Surely there will be costs involved in increasing the length of a conference, such as the following:
* Costs of idle time periods for participants.

S. E.Sampson
(sampie size
307
5 problems each)
920900
. ...--
880
en8601-
. ~~~~~~~~~~~
.
..
. ......._._
.
....
~~~~~~~~~~~~
----
---
<, 840 - ---- --------E
--
.---
840'-----
_~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~.
.7
--
. ...
.....
. ..............
--- ......--
.- . .......
--
-------------
............
.-..
..-.
.......
....
_.._.
._._...._
7801e-__!
760-
ROOMS=4 -+-
5
6
Time Periods (TIM)
ROOMS=5
FIG. 5. TIM-ROOMS
ROOMS=6
-S
ROOMS=7|
tradeoff.
* Costs of reserving facilities for more time.

* Costs of under-utilized facilities (i.e., vacant rooms).
* Costs of utilizing time periods which are increasingly undesirable to moderators and participants.
The way to minimize these costs is to shorten the length of the conference. The focus of Question 3 is exploring the conditions under which the length of a conference can be decreased without
significantly decreasing the meeting of participant requests.
Consider the following example:
A conference is scheduled with three time periods per day. The conference has traditionally
lasted for 8 time periods, with three periods on two days and two periods on the third. Many
conference participants are only willing to attend the conference for two days due to the
expense of an extra night at the hotel and an extra day away from work. Therefore, the
session offerings scheduled during the third day are sparsely attended. The conference
planners desire to know the potential impact of reducing the length of the conference to two
days. It is uncertain how many sessions the average participant is interested in attending. The
hypothetical conference involves 10 sessions with one offering of each.
In this example, it is uncertain what the average RPP (requests per participant) would be. Since
few participants stay for the third day, it could be surmised that generally, RPP < 6. This may be
interpreted as saying that the participant cost of missing a session on the third day is exceeded by
the cost of staying the third day.
If in fact RPP << 6, significant cost of idle participant time may occur. For example, if RPP = 3,
then over an 8 period conference, participants will be idle for 5/8ths of the periods. Given an
uncertain RPP, what would the impact be of reducing the conference from 8 to 6 periods?
Reducing TIM when RPP < TIM
We will explore the impact of reducing TIM using the problem as outlined in the above
example. This will be done by varying the RPP and TIM parameters. We will test the impact of

308
decreasing the conference length from 8 periods to all values greater than or equal to 2. Since the
actual RPP is unknown, but assumed to be less than or equal to 6, we consider all values from 2
to 6. Figure 6 contains the basic results for the test.
(samplesize = 5 problemseach)
1400
11230
230 00 ---
---.
.-
. ................_
. ... _._
....
._........ _ .-.._
11000-
700-~~~
. ~
. ~
6) 00400
..........-.
.-
--
..
....
-------.
1000-----4---7
. ...
~~
._
~~
=_~
.. ...............
.............
....
_..__..
.
.........
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
.................. ........
4
5
6
Time Periods (TIM)
RPP=2
RPP=3
RPP=5
RPP=6
--
RPP=4
FIG. 6. Reducing TIM when RPP < TIM.
As we might have expected, the impact of decreasing TIM is most pronounced for a high
number of requests per participant (RPP). Keep in mind that the number of potential met requests
is a function of RPP, all of the solutions at TIM = 8 might have nearly 100% meeting of requests.
Perhaps a better way to represent the data is to look at the number of requests lost (i.e., unmet) as
a result of decreasing TIM, as shown in Fig. 7.
We see that there is an increasing marginal cost (in lost requests) for decreasing TIM, and that
the cost is most pronounced for higher RPP. For low RPP (e.g., 2 or 3), there is almost no cost for
decreasing TIM, as we suspected.
Increasing OPS to compensatefor decreasing TIM
Since RPP is uncertain, increasing OPS substantially may result in wasted resources. The
dilemma is as shown in Table 4.
TABLE 4. Supposed impact of decreasing TIM from 8 to 6
Uncertain RPP realizations (extreme cases)

RPP actually 2
RPP actually 6
If we simultaneously
leave OPS the same
Good: participant
satisfaction not
Bad: participant
satisfaction decreases
If we simultaneously
increase OPS
affected by TIM -. 6
Bad: OPS was
increased unnecessarily
Good: participant
satisfaction maintained
The schedulemanagerfaces risk due to the uncertainRPP. The risk could be minimalif the
requiredincreasein OPS wereminimal.The test will be accomplishedby varyingOPS and TIM
parameterswith RPP = 2 and againwith RPP = 6.

S. E.Sampson
309

900
O)700 +-++* 7**
4 001._._....
- ......_-}----8 ...............-
....4..
_ 00
. -. ==.
. .............
--
Time Periods (TIM)

U
RPP=2
0RPP=5
-0
0
RP=3-5-RPP=4
RPP=S
4700
..................__
__
.....
FIG. 7. Requests lost by reducing TIM.
Figure 8 shows.6...........
the plot for RPP-2. Note that decreasingTIM has. ".
no
noticeable
effect on
.__.
_+*~__
.__.
_....................
in
total enrollment,
and neither does increasingOPS. Under RPP =2, it would be pointless to
increaseOPS in an attemptto increaseenrollment.
(sample
size - 5 problemseach)
W- 1P
~~~~~~~~~~P=
P-31'
400
480OyyYY
:'
Offerig PerSsions(T
PS)
450I
Figure9 shows thegraphfor RPP
460
....
-~~~~
~ ~FIG.
~ 8.
6. INotthicasedecreasingTIM t
.....
....... _
t
W 1W11
OP whles
TIM.
(RPP
decreascing
InG.
4i0c
imato
- ----- rp
nolmnSwih
yice420OSt
......OSwhkdcruig
orRP=6
a
ercvee
dramaticn
... . .. .
b
FIG 8.
440---
Figur
2__
eid
has
nnoeabl
1. a
.......5 (recall
RP-
ntiscsSdcesngTMt
eidshsadaai
bten14an

rcl
310

1500-
1450-
1400
.-*.*
.....
.............
_-. _.
._...
._.
_......._.__
.........._....
__
-. . . ...... __._._............
. 3 0. .-=.
g~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cr
<
.-.
1300------------
12 50 -
".
...... . . ...........
. ....................
. ._. _.
12 0 0....................
1150,
1.1
1.2
1.3
1.4
1.5
1.6
1.7
1.9
1.8

|-
TIM=6
+--4-TIM=7
TIM=8|
FIG. 9. Increasing OPS while decreasing TIM (RPP = 6).
that OPS represents the average number of offerings per session). With RPP
benefits to come from increasing OPS to compensate for a decreased TIM.
6 there are definite
Seating capacity utilization

Question 4.
What constitutes good seating capacity utilization? What is an appropriate amount of 'safety
seating capacity?'
'Seating CaPacity Utilization' (CPU) refers to the number of participants demanding seats in a
session divided by the number of seats available. Low utilization would mean two things: (1) that
it is likely that a lot of vacant seats will exist, and (2) that it is unlikely that a participant cannot
attend a session due to seating capacity constraints. The first might be considered a cost, and the
second a benefit (of low utilization). These two factors therefore trade off against one another.
Question 4 inquires about the management of this tradeoff.
The decision insights resulting from the analysis of this question would apply in situations such
as the following:
* A conference planner is contacting a hotel to determine what types of conference facilities are
available, and desires to know the size of rooms to request and how many chairs to have set up
for the sessions.
* A school is designing a new building, and desires to know how large to design the rooms to
meet present and projected demand.
In these situations, the CPU lever is adjusted by increasing the capacity of session offerings
(taking the participant requests for sessions to be given).
If CPU = 100%, then the total capacity of the offerings of particular sessions is equal to the
expected number of requests for those sessions. Although the expected number of requests can be
calculated, the realization of session demand is a stochastic variable. Therefore, the CPU parameter represents the expected session demand divided by the session capacity. CPU = 100%

S. E.Sampson
311
means that in expectation the session will be just enrolled to capacity, although in realization the
session will probably either have vacant seats or be over subscribed.
At one extreme, a sufficiently low CPU will virtually ensure that all session offerings will have
vacant seats. In this case, decreasing CPU further (by increasing the capacities of session offerings),
will have no effect on participant satisfaction, since the additional seats will be vacant.
At the other extreme, a sufficiently high CPU will ensure that all sessions are filled to capacity.
Thus, any increase in CPU (by decreasing the capacities of session offerings) will result in a direct
reduction in participant satisfaction (since every lost seat results in one fewer satisfied request).
Adjustmentsin CPU
We arbitrarily define 'sufficiently low CPU' as 50%, which is effectively unconstrained capacity
(since there are twice as many seats as expected requests for those seats). We define 'sufficiently
high CPU' as 130%, with an expectation of 30% more requests than enrollment capacity will
allow. We are interested in solution behaviour between these two extremes.
For this first test of solution sensitivity to changes in CPU, we desire to isolate the impact of
capacity conflicts from the impact of scheduling conflicts. This is accomplished by minimizing the
probability of scheduling conflict occurrences. (Recall that a scheduling conflict occurs when participants are unable to attend a session because they are busy with higher priority sessions at
every time period of the conflicting session.) The analysis of the tests surrounding Question 1
shows that one way to avoid scheduling conflicts is to set OPS sufficiently high. We showed that
OPS = 2 (the base case value) eliminated most or all of the scheduling conflicts. This test will have
all parameters at base case values except for CPU. Results are shown in Figure 10.
(samplesize = 5 problemseach)
1000
_.
950
9 00
850 - ------X
........
. ..................
. .. .............
... ..._....
__
.-- -
...........
800
750
.
.........-
60
50
55
70
65
80
90
100
110
75
85
95
105
Capacity Ulization (CPU)
115
120
130
125
FIG. 10. Adjustmentsin CPU.
Observe that capacity utilization (CPU) up to the 90% level has no impact on enrollment. At
100%, CPU has a minor impact, causing about 20 requests to be denied (2% of all requests).
Recall that the problem generator considers CPU an expected capacity utilization-with the
actual number of requests for each sessions being binomially distributed.
Increasing CPU beyond 100% causes a steady decrease in enrollment, with approximately 7
additional denied requests for each 1% CPU is increased (up to 130%). At some point of

312
CPU > 100%, every session offering will be filled to capacity, and any additional increase in CPU
will have an absolute impact on enrollment. Therefore, at the extremes, the shape of Figure 10 is
easily predicted. The behaviour of the curve around CPU = 100% will be a function of the distribution of requests for the various sessions.
Interaction between capacity conflicts and schedule conflicts

In the previous sub-section, we attempted to test specifically for capacity conflicts. We now
extend the study to jointly consider capacity and scheduling conflicts. This is accomplished by
testing the impact of simultaneously adjusting CPU (for the capacity conflict effect) and OPS (for
the scheduling conflict effect).
We will test over simultaneous OPS and CPU changes. Results are shown in Figure 11.
(sample size = 5 problemseach)
1000
980
-..
l-.-
........... .
_.
9601- ._...._
940 . ..._X
920
880~
860
. ..
.--'''''''''''''''''''''
--
---
-~
---
------
-------
........_........
840'
_____
8201----..
800
| e-CPU=60
1.2
1.4
1.6
1.8
CPU=80
CPU=100
CPU=120
FIG. 11. Capacity and schedule conflict interactions.
Note that the curves for CPU = 60 and CPU = 80 have almost the same shape. This indicates
that when the probability of capacity conflicts is low, schedule conflicts occur at the rate indicated
by those two curves, and conflicts can be avoided by increasing OPS. However, notice that as
CPU increases beyond 100%, the curve flattens out. The following is why we believe this occurs.
As noted previously, increasing OPS has the effect of relieving schedule conflict. That benefit of
increasing OPS will only be realized if schedule conflicts exist. As CPU increases beyond 100%,
the probability of capacity conflicts increases, which decreases the number of requests that are
potential candidates for schedule conflicts. Therefore increasing CPU diminishes the effect of
increasing OPS, as manifest by the flattened curve for CPU = 120. We conclude that although
over-utilization of capacity (CPU > 100%) can be costly in terms of capacity conflicts, a side
benefit can be realized in terms of fewer schedule conflicts.
SUMMARY
AND
CONCLUSIONS
We have used simulation to numerically address some resource decision issues that might be
faced by a conference scheduler. Insights include:

S. E.Sampson
andE.N. Weiss-Designing Conferences
313
1. Increasing the number of offerings of each session (OPS) can significantly reduce the number of
schedule conflicts, but with quickly diminishing marginal returns. This implies that given
increasing marginal costs for additional offerings of sessions, there is likely to be a relatively
low and distinct level of OPS which will be optimal for a given conference. These observations
also apply to increasing the number of time periods (TIM). Increasing OPS and TIM causes an
interactive effect. Not surprisingly, therefore, requesting only a few moderators to offer their
sessions more than once, should increase overall participant satisfaction greatly, without incurring significant rental or room costs to the conference. More importantly, our experience has
shown that rarely, if at all, have OR/MS/DS conferences considered offering potentially
popular sessions more than once.
2. A relatively small 'safety stock' of unused rooms benefits the heuristic results significantly, but
this benefit diminishes quickly. The facility planner's time would be better spent analyzing the
needed sizes of rooms than the number of rooms. Similarly, all 'slots' (=ROOMS * TIM) are
not created equal. Slots created by additional time periods result in much more flexibility than
slots created by additional rooms.
3. If the number of requests per participant is substantially lower than the length of the conference, the conference length can be decreased without significantly decreasing enrollment
results. This length decrease can thus result in increased participant satisfaction, since the participants will have fewer periods of idle time. However, if a conference's length is decreased such
that TIM is only slightly larger than RPP, the number of schedule conflicts will probably
increase dramatically. From this we conclude that in order to determine an 'optimal' conference
length, it is essential to have information about the number of requests per participant.
4. Safety stock of seats in rooms benefits enrollment. When seating capacity is over-utilized some
this may have a
participants will be denied enrollment due to capacity constraints-however,
side benefit of decreasing the number of potential schedule conflicts.
We have not addressed the implementation issue of actually determining preferences prior to a
conference meetings. Currently participants' preferences are elicited with their feet. For academic
conferences, preferences could easily be solicited through e-mail and the Internet. Proper design of
the data collection instrument would enable ease of processing and analysis of solutions. The
tremendous benefit, as shown in this paper, should clearly outweigh the additional costs of obtaining solutions, particularly if the time spent by the scheduler using the 3 x 5 cards is included.
The results of this research could find application in other settings that involve participants
seeking enrollment in resource-constrained sessions. Applications may include the scheduling of
high-school and college classes, arts festivals and sporting events. Each problem type may present
unique feasibility constraints, which may warrant formulation and solution procedure extensions.
Future research in this area should include the exploration of other decision rules that schedulers
can use to improve the utilization of event resources. An example is determining ways to improve
the distribution of break time in participant schedules.
REFERENCES
1. R. W. EGLESE and G. K. RAND (1987) Conference seminar timetabling. J. Opl Res. Soc. 38, 591-598.
2. W. SHIH and J. A. SULLIVAN (1977) Dynamic course scheduling for college faculty via zero-one programming. Decis.
Sci. 8, 771-721.
3. S. D. BLOOMFIELD and M. M. MCSHARRY (1979) Preferential course scheduling. Interfaces 9(4), 24-3 1.
4. W. JUNGINGER (1986) Timetabling in Germany-A survey. Interfaces 16(4), 66-74.
5. J. J. DINKEL, J. MoTE and M. A. VENKATARAMANAN (1989) An efficient decision support system for academic course
scheduling. Opns Res. 37, 853-864.
6. L. KANG and G. M. WHITE (1992) A logic approach to the resolution of constraints in timetabling. Eur. J. Opl Res. 61,
306-317.
7. R. L. GRAVES, L. SCHRAGE and J. SANKARAN (1993) An auction method for course registration. Interfaces 23(5), 81-92.
8. G. LAPORTE and S. DESROCHES (1986) The problem of assigning students to course sections in a large engineering
school. Comps and Opns Res. 13, 387-394.
9. A. J. Hosios and J. M. ROUSSEAU (1980) A heuristic scheduling algorithm. J. Opl Res. Soc. 31, 749-753.
10. A. COLIJN (1973) A sectioning algorithm. INFOR 11, 210-225.
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12. A. M. BARHAMand J. B. WESTWOOD (1978) A simple heuristic to facilitate course timetabling. J. Opl Res. Soc. 29,
1055-1060.
annotated bibliography. Comput. J. 23, 307-316.
13. G. SCHMIDTand T. STROHLEIN (1980) Timetable construction-An
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16. D. DE WERRA(1985) An introduction to timetabling. Eur. J. Opl Res. 19, 151-162.
17. L. KIAERand J. YELLEN(1992) Weighted graphs and university course timetabling. Comps and Opns Res. 19, 59-67.
18: -K. A. DOWSLAND(1990) A timetabling problem in which clashes are inevitable. J. Opl Res. Soc. 41,'907-918.
19. D. ABRAMSON (1991) Constructing school timetables using simulated annealing: Sequential and parallel algorithms.
Mgmt Sci. 37, 98-113.
20. M. W. CARTER,G. LAPORTE and J. W. CHINNECK(1994) A general examination scheduling system. Interfaces 24(3),
109-120.
21. D. JOHNSON(1990) Timetabling university examinations. J. Opl Res. Soc. 41, 39-47.
22. T. ARANI and V. A. LoTFI (1989) Three phased approach to final exam scheduling. IIE Trans. 21, 86-96.
23. M. W. CARTER(1986) A survey of practical applications of examination timetabling algorithms. Opns Res. 34, 193-202.
model to minimize multiple24. J. M. ANDERSON and R. H. BERNHARD (1981) A university examination-scheduling
examination days for students. Decis. Sci. 12, 231-239.
25. N. K. MEHTA (1981) The application of a graph coloring method to an examination scheduling problem. Interfaces
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A decision
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A heuristic
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satisfaction.
participant
Interfaces
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30-41.
Received February 1995; accepted June 1995 after two revisions


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Designing Conferences to Improve Resource Utilization and Participant Satisfaction

Author(s): Scott E. Sampson and Elliott N. Weiss

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Journal of the OperationalResearchSociety (1996) 47, 297-314

Designing Conferences to Improve Resource

Darden Graduate School of Business, University of Virginia

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Journalof the OperationalResearchSociety Vol. 47, No.2

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EEp, S,t < 1

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Journal of the OperationalResearchSociety Vol. 47, No.2

enrollments must be within the capacities of scheduled sessions:

E Ss,t < ROOMS

A final constraint is implied by our definition of variables:

PROBLEM GENERATOR AND EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN

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Base case value

EXPERIMENTS AND RESULTS

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Journalof the OperationalResearchSociety Vol. 47, No.2

1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8

FIG. 1. Increasing the numberof offieringsper session.

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Increasing conference length

.-. ..- ....-...........-..-............

Time Periods (TIM)

Interactions between OPS and TIM

What sensitivitydoes participantsatisfactionhave to room availability?What constitutesan

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Journalof the OperationalResearchSociety Vol. 47, No.2

1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8

FIG. 3. Interactions between OPS and TIM.

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(sample size = 5 problems each)

FIG. 4. Sensitivity to changes in RMU.

which brings us to slot-utilization:

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Journal of the OperationalResearchSociety Vol. 47, No.2

774 met req.

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<, 840 - ---- --------E

* Costs of reserving facilities for more time.

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Journal of the OperationalResearchSociety Vol. 47, No.2

FIG. 6. Reducing TIM when RPP < TIM.

Uncertain RPP realizations (extreme cases)

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(sample size = 5 problems each)

O)700 +-++* 7**

Time Periods (TIM)

FIG. 7. Requests lost by reducing TIM.

Figure9 shows thegraphfor RPP

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Journalof the OperationalResearchSociety Vol. 47, No.2

(sample size = 5 problems each)

OfferingsPer Session (OPS)

FIG. 9. Increasing OPS while decreasing TIM (RPP = 6).

6 there are definite

Seating capacity utilization

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FIG. 10. Adjustmentsin CPU.

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