CHAPTER ONE

1.1 INTRODUCTION

The class timetabling problem is a typical scheduling problem that appears

to be a stressful job in every academic institute. In previous years, timetable

scheduling was done manually with a single person or group of individuals

involved in the task of scheduling it manually. Planning of timetable is one of the

most complex and error-prone applications because it is actually done manually.

This situation demands a comprehensive approach where a computer can be used

to schedule a timetabling problem by being automated using a concept gotten from

evolutional biology called Genetic algorithm.

1.2 BACKGROUND OF STUDY

Scheduling is one of the important tasks that we encountered in our daily life

situations. There are various types of scheduling problems which includes

personnel scheduling, production scheduling, educational timetable scheduling etc.

In educational timetable scheduling, there are many constraints that need to be

satisfied in order to get a clear solution which has made it a very hard task.

Educational timetable scheduling can be called a non-polynomial hard (NP hard)

which means that, there are no exact algorithms that can solve this problem of

timetable scheduling. Hence, evolutionary techniques have been used to solve the
 time table scheduling problem. Techniques like Evolutionary Algorithms (EAs),

Genetic Algorithms (GAs) etc.

Scheduling conflicts arise in different varieties of settings as illustrated by the

following examples:

(i) Consider a school environment that requires the scheduling of a given set of

courses and meetings between students and lecturers. Each course will take place

in a particular lecture hall and each hall has its own capacity. We must also make

sure that no student or lecturer is fixed up in more than one particular appointment.

(ii) Consider a factory that produces different sorts of gadgets. Each gadget must

first be processed by a “machine 1”,“machine 2”,“machine 3” and so on where

different gadgets requires different amount of processing time on different

machines.

(iii) Consider the central processing unit of a computer that must process a

sequence of jobs that arrive over time.

1.3 STATEMENT OF PROBLEM

Any problem has a set of valid results. It is said to form the solution space. In an

optimization problem, the main aim or goal is to find results that maximize or

minimize a set of criteria or bring a lasting solution to the said problem. If we look
 at the solution space as an n-dimensional space then essentially we are searching

for a global minima or maxima in the solution space.

Timetable scheduling is always said to be a complex optimization problem which

has shown to be related to the clique of minimization problem, this timetabling

problem need a lasting solution that will help in scheduling and assigning time to

different events that may occur mutually exclusive. This problem might occur in

various aspect in day –to- day activities in human endeavor in academic and other

sectors in life, hence the need for efficient automated timetabling.

1.4 AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

The project is a software application that many Institutions, businesses and some

companies may actually need. This is a simple case of an allocation problem.

(1) The project involves developing a program that can schedule time table

effectively for school. The prototype of this work should be followed by the

development of a booking system that can automatically allocate resources.

(2) The main principal of this project is to solve timetable problems with

evolutionary computing processes.

(3) The actual different between this project with other one existing in the faculty

of science is that the timetable does not clash and it is more efficient and simple

to scheduling and allotment of time.

1.5 SIGNIFICANCE OF STUDY

This project is a topical one demanding a research effort due to conflict that

recently occurred in my schools and other businesses. This research work will

solve the problem of conflicting time allocation to lectures in schools and

scheduling of time and event in different businesses.

1.6 LIMITATION OF THE STUDY

The lists of constraint on this project are so many but just the few major ones

will be listed:

(i) To start with, the project took a lot of time to understand, researched on

before embarking on it.

(ii) (ii) Unavailability of electric power supply during the research work.

(iii) Availability of research materials and similar references

1.7 DEFINITION OF TERMS

(i) Time table

In institutions, the class time table is a major administrative activity which is

prerequisite.
The time table problem or conflict can be said to be the problem of assigning a

number of events into a limited number of time period.

(ii) Automated

This is a machine- controlled system operating automatically to different time

schedule. (Oxford Advance English Dictionary)

Time table: detailed plan showing the schedule of time allotment of various subject

and activities (oxford languages)