Christine Bliddal, Ole Tranberg Abstract In this thesis we investigate the possiblities of using constraint programming in the area of staff planning by treating the nurse scheduling problem. Based on interviews with several people in the hospital sector we create a mathematical model general enough to cover most of the common needs in this area. The basics in constraint programming are introduced and we implement the previously developed model both in constraint programming and in linear programming. For the implementation part we have used the constraint programming language ECL[i]PS[e] . The implementation is tested on problems inspired by the conditions met in the hospital wards and compared with an implementation in the more traditional programming environment GAMS. We find that the constraint programming approach is a promising tool for staff scheduling problems since it allows for simpler implementation while offering potential for better run-time characteristics in terms of time and space used. Keywords staff planning, nurse scheduling, constraint programming, GAMS, ECL[i]PS[e] Type Master's thesis [Academic thesis] Year 2002 Publisher Informatics and Mathematical Modelling, Technical University of Denmark, DTU Address Richard Petersens Plads, Building 321, DK-2800 Kgs. Lyngby Series IMM-EP-2002-64 Note Supervisor: Prof. Jens Clausen Electronic version(s) [pdf] BibTeX data [bibtex] IMM Group(s) Operations Research