Scheduling Major League Baseball Umpires and the

Traveling Umpire Problem Author(s): Michael A. Trick,

Hakan Yildiz and Tallys Yunes Source: Interfaces, May-
June 2012, Vol. 42, No. 3
Major league Baseball (MLB) has been facing a challenge in scheduling umpires for season.
This is due to large number of games being played. Also, from MLB objectives of not to
allow an

Problem Description

This problem consists of combination of two problems MLB Umpire Scheduling Problem
(MLB -USP) and Travelling Umpire Solution (TUP)

MLB Umpire Scheduling Problem (MLB -USP)

Each umpire crew consists of four umpires which usually work together apart from few
exceptions. As per rules each umpire receives three week-long vacations as a crew and one-
week individual holiday. Total number umpires crew required is 17, with 2 crews on
vacation, that leaves 15 crews, which are assigned to previously scheduled games. Objective
is to minimize total miles travelled by umpire, adhering to constraints. In this case, due to
large number of constraints it will not be possible to adhere to all constraints and come out
with feasible solution. Hence constraints are divided into hard and soft constraints. Hard
constraints must be satisfied in all scenario where-as soft constraints can be violated but with
a penalty.

Hard constraints include conditions

 umpire crew must not travel from West Coast without intermediate day off
 crew should not stand consecutive series more than 1,700 miles apart without day off
 crew should not travel more than 300 miles before a day game i.e. before 4 pm
 crew should not take second vacation unless all other crews complete first week
vacation.

Soft constraints include conditions

 crew should not work more than 21 days without off
 crew should not stand for any team within 18-day period
 crew should not stand of any team more than four times
 crew should travel to all cities at least once, stand in each team’s home and road
game.
 crew should travel similar distances.

In MLB a Series is divided between two, three or four games between same team in same
venue. Series is played either played between Friday and Sunday or weekday between
Monday and Thursday. Weekday slot is further divided into two slots of 2 games each,
similarly weekend games are also divided into two games per slot, some series can cross over
week day/week end, those are assigned to either weekday or weekend based on slot with
majority. In same manner complete season is divided into 53 slots of 15 simultaneous series.
The Traveling Umpire Problem (TUP)

Main constraints considered in TUP are that umpire should not be assigned to each team too
often and crew should cover all teams. Based on tournament format wherein each team plays
each other twice, constraints to be satisfied are umpire screw should be assigned to each
game, each crew works exactly one game per slot, crew sees each team at least once at team’s
home, no crew is standing in home crew game more than once in n-d 1 consecutive days and
no crew is standing a team again in [n/2] – d2 days, where n is number of umpire crews.

Solution Approaches

Multiple approaches of Integer Programming were tried, however at certain number of games
it all fails to provide an optimal solution. MLB USP and TUP considered to be some
characteristics similar to routing problem with time windows but due to so many other many
constraints, solution of this problem seems to be more challenging.

Heuristic Approach

Based on experience of finding optimal USP solutions, an approach to start with simple
greedy algorithm to find out initial solution was adopted and later it was improved by local
search in simulated annealing framework. Greedy approach allows to build umpiring
schedule starting from first slot and ending with last slot. For each slot t, algorithm assigns
umpire crew to series, to minimize both travel of umpires and constraint violations. Using
graph theory algorithm tries to find edge with best matching solution, it does not find it
backtrack to previous slot, however only single back-tracing is allowed, so we may still have
infeasible solution, which is corrected by local search and Simulated Annealing.

Local Search and Simulated Annealing

Local Search algorithm at any point iteratively moves to neighbouring edges of solution to
find out alternate solutions. This approach finds all neighbourhood of solution by just
performing simple two exchange move. However, this approach has a drawback that it only
considers local optimum points which decrease cost. Simulated Annealing is powerful local
search algorithm that tries to find out a solution in global optimum instead of local minimum.
For TUP cost function is total distance travel by crew. However, for MLB-USP cost function
additional consider penalties for violation of soft constraints. In addition to it different
violations have different penalty weights.

Results and Conclusions

Above proposed MLB-USP solution was coded using Visual Basic within Microsoft Excel
and C programming language. Algorithms were run on Linux PC with Pentium 4.3.5 GHz
processor. To prove solution, multiple runs were scheduled for 2006 on test bed and optimum
solution was takes and for year 2005 previous manually calculated solution was taken. On
comparison of both solutions it was found that it improves on almost every measure of
quality in exchange of higher total mileage.

Highlights of 2006 schedule which was generated by above solution was that does not show
any 21-day rule violation and only one violation of 18-day rule, whereas 2005 has 16
instances of 16 of 18-day rule violation. New generated solution is also more balanced in
term of number of miles travelled and number of games umpired by crew. Also, it reduced
number of times umpires crew fails to see different teams at home and on road. Solution also
provides high quality schedule even when requirements changed for 2009 and 2010 on equal
game count of crews and ensuring that each crew sees as many teams at home. Also
generating schedule now takes less manual effort and less time.

For TUP greedy matching chosen heuristic and simulated annealing algorithm was used with
script language in ILOG OPL studio 3.7. Testbed consists of Linux sever with an Intel®
Xeon(TM) 3.2 GHz processor. However initial no optimal solution can be found, however
later by relaxing constraints of d1 and d2 to 18-day rule a feasible solution was found for 30
teams.

Since Testbeds were used, it made very easy to try different combinations of data and by
relaxing different combinations of constraint optimal solution was achieved. It saved a lot of
effort on preparing umpiring schedule, also generated solution as readily accepted as it was
used in 2006 as well in later years. Generated solution seems to be flexible as it can easily
cater to different requirement for season 2009 and 2010.

Implementing and Evaluating SilverScreener: A

Marketing Management Support System for Movie
Exhibitors Authors: Jehoshua Eliashberg, Sanjeev
Swami, Charles B. Weinberg, Berend Wierenga Source:
Interfaces, May - Jun 2001, Vol. 31, No. 3
Market-management-support systems (MMSS) was successfully implemented in other areas
of arts-and-entertainment industry but implementation of Market-management-support
systems (MMSS) in Motion picture industry was proven because it is changeling due to
complex dynamics between arrangements between distributor and exhibitors, non-analytical
decision making and dynamic nature of decision environment. In Motion industry, there is
huge Complexity which Theater owner has to face. This is due to different factors which
includes availability of large number of movies, pressure from distributors to provide screen
space for new movies. In motion industry distributor and exhibitor share a complex
relationship. This is due to fact that distributor receives greater share of revenue in initial few
weeks and later after weeks of movie running exhibitor receives a greater share of revenue.
Due to above stated complexity, there is a need for MMSS to help theater programming
managers to optimize screen capacity. Three person which includes Swami, Eliashbery and
Weinberg in 1999 developed SilverScreen Model to maximum cumulative profit.

SilverScreener Implementation Strategy

Important point of SilverScreener Implementation was to necessarily have managers on board

with implementation. Initially after from few managers most of were not having a positive
attitude towards implementation. To overcome it constant interaction with users was also
important strategy to develop positive attitude towards MMSS. Another strategy which was
adopted was to measure progress among attitude towards SilverScreener, users were
measured three times during implementation and defectiveness was analysed at the end. Also,
another strategy which was used is to have MMSS operated externally and recommendations
were made accessible to decision making team in Pathe’s Theatre (Buitenhof). This is due to
limited technical knowledge among managers. Another important strategy was to have
recommendations in user friendly way to managers via internet. This helps to understand and
easily analysis of recommendations.

Framework used to implement SilverScreener is based on interaction of number of factors:

demand-side factors, supply side factors, match between demand and supply, design
characteristics of MMSS and characteristics of implementation process.

Demand side factor is movie programming at Pathe´e which makes choice about which
theatre should play which movies and on which screens every week. Another important factor
in movies scheduling is Time factor constraint. Pathe’s theatre management would provide
updated information every week about ticket sales, movies releases from market, which was
to be fed into MMSS system to generate recommended schedule.

Supply side is choosing which movies to program. As movie industry is an information rich
industry it makes a perfect case for an optimization model using decision variables and
relationship between them.

Problem is formulated as an integer-programming model, on using this model team has to

decide on how to schedule an available movie and for how many weeks. Each week six
movies were selected and aim was to optimize their results over next eight weeks. However,
recommendations were implemented only for first week and recommendation was again
generated for next week by feeding updated revised data in model. Also, final discussion was
taken by program managers at Pathe’s theatre.

SilverScreener Solution recommends movies every week and screens to movies were
allocated based on number of attendances; i.e. highest capacity screen is allocated to movie
with expected highest visitors.

Below is different modelling framework used in implementation of SilverScreener solution.

Exhibitor’s Profit Margin

Profit margin for a movie is sum of two components, concession profit and exhibitor share of
movie’s box-office gross revenue. Concession profit consists of popcorn and cold drink sales.
Exhibitor share is calculated on basis of revenue without rental cost and taxes of 10 percent,
exhibitor share increases if movie runs longer in theatre. Exhibitor share is determined by
contract terms between distributor and exhibitor, Concession and Revenue are directly
proportional to number of visitors. For previous released movie contract terms were
estimated to be 27.5 percent if movies run for some weeks else share is taken from previous
year data. For future releases, contract terms classified into three types A, B and C based on
expected number of visitors for first week and decline of 2.5 percent per week until it
stabilizes to 27.5 percent. Type A movies are expected to have highest opening attendance
and have low decay rate.