Creating seating plans: A practical application

Lewis, Rhyd; Carroll, Fiona

Abstract

© 2016 Operational Research Society Ltd. All rights reserved. 0160-5682/16. This paper examines the interesting problem of designing seating plans for large events such as weddings and gala dinners where, among other things, the aim is to construct solutions where guests are sat on the same tables as friends and family, but, perhaps more importantly, are kept away from those they dislike. This problem is seen to be N P-complete from a number of different perspectives. We describe the problem model and heuristic algorithm that is used on the commercial website www.weddingseatplanner.com. We present results on the performance of this algorithm, demonstrating the factors that can influence run time and solution quality, and also present a comparison with an equivalent IP model used in conjunction with a commercial solver.

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Mar 23, 2016
• Online Publication Date: Oct 18, 2016
• Publication Date: Jan 1, 2016
• Deposit Date: Dec 1, 2017
• Publicly Available Date: Dec 1, 2017
• Journal: Journal of the Operational Research Society
• Print ISSN: 0160-5682
• Electronic ISSN: 1476-9360
• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 67
• Issue: 11
• Pages: 1353-1362
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/jors.2016.34
• Keywords: seating plans, graph colouring, combinatorial optimisation, metaheuristics, integer programming
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/906765
• Publisher URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/jors.2016.34
• Additional Information: Additional Information : This is a post-peer-review, pre-copyedit version of an article published in Journal of the Operational Research Society. The definitive publisher-authenticated version Lewis, R. and Carroll, F. (2016) Creating seating plans: A practical application. Journal of the Operational Research Society, 67 (11). pp. 1353-1362, 10.1057/jors.2016.34 is available online at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/jors.2016.34
• Contract Date: Dec 1, 2017