Robert,
Thanks for your post and the links to the New York Times articles. You raise an important issue: what moral responsibilities do the developers of operations research solutions have?
It is true that any technology can be misused, but, as you suggest in your post, the scheduling software described in the articles may not be capable of effectively dealing with the complexity of the problem or the conflicting objectives involved.
I suspect that software designed for automation, rather than for decision support, was an important factor in the creation of the difficulties described in the articles.
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Robert Rose
President
Optimal Decisions, LLC
Franklin Park NJ
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Original Message:
Sent: 01-26-2015 18:20
From: Robert Fourer
Subject: New blog post: The Different Sides of Scheduling
When is workforce scheduling the hero of the story and when is it the villain? I consider contrasting examples in The Different Sides of Scheduling, new on the disORiented blog.
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Robert Fourer
President
AMPL Optimization Inc.
Evanston IL
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