Abstract:

One of the most important problems in managing service systems is reducing customer waiting time, and making appointment in advance to reduce the uncertainty of customer arrivals (the demand) is an important approach to reducing customer waiting time. Studies on appointment scheduling problems date back to the 1950s and ever since appointment scheduling optimization models and algorithms have received extensive attention in both academia and industry, in particular, in healthcare service industry. In this paper, we first describe the appointment scheduling problems and their characteristics, and present a framework for classifying the problems; we then discuss the major results and progresses of appointment scheduling research with our commentaries; finally, we examine the current important appointment scheduling problems and discuss the future research trends and directions.

Key words: appointment scheduling, service operations management, optimization model and algorithm, literature review