Struggling to Optimize Time Table

[bharatstank]

Hello,

Need your guidance on options to optimize the Student wise time table before it gets freeze.
Please suggest the options - Students wise
1. wherein  2 to 3 hours of gaps can be removed
2. minimum 3 to 4 hours of sessions are there daily
3. when one "Student group" is optimized, the other Students groups still requires re-running

This results in running of the FET Time table multiple times but still the most ideal version is not achieved.

Looking forward to your support. to understand the list of final optimizations applied to  timetable and then freeze.

Best Regards
Bharat Kumar Tank

[Volker Dirr]

... I fear i don't fully understand. You want to reduce the number of gaps and it doesn't work? Maybe add your fet file also.

[bharatstank]

Hello Volker,
Thank you for your reply. Attached is the FET file for your kind reference.

Yes I want to reduce the gap and want to further optimize before the time table is freeze for the entire semester - so that students are not waiting for their next class (too long) - probably a gap of max 1 hour (between 2 activities max.)

and also No day has more than 6 hours (or max 7 hours) hours of teaching approx.
Also alteast each day has 3 hours of teaching (exception on Thursday with 2 hours)
Also No day is a free day (Mon to Fri)

Thank you for your support & guidance (if any for the FET file and the way activities and constraints are defined)

Best Regards
Bharat Kumar Tank

[Volker Dirr]

Well, you forgot to add that constraints.

For example for the gaps you added only 4 constraints to students set, but not to all. Also you use "gaps per day", which is imperfect and slow.
Remove that 4 constraints. Instead of that add a constraint for all students with gaps per week.
I was able to solve your data set even if ALL students gave got 0 gaps per week (that means also 0 gaps per day at the same time!). I found a solution in under 1 minute. So it is easy.

You also didn't add constraint for max hours per day. I didn't tried them at the same time. Don't add all at once. Do it step by step.

[bharatstank]

Hello Volker,
Thank you for your reply.
As suggested, Removed 4 constraint and added - All Students Gap Per Week (0 Gap per week) - but did not get output even after 7min of running (My laptop is i7 with 8gb RAM).
Does this mean that to get quick output - we need better configuration than this one.

Trying to apply conditions as suggested. and hope this helps.

Best Regards
Bharat Kumar Tank

[Volker Dirr]

Well, timetabling depend a bit on luck. Sometime it is fast and sometimes it is slow.
If you want to know more about that, start watching this video:
https://youtu.be/MVt0Yb9y8xc

I have got some more videos about that topic on YouTube.

I just generated once again on my Ryzen 5600g with 6 threads only (even i have got 12) and i got the first result just after 40 seconds. While the other 5 threads didn't found a solution after 4 minutes.

Solution attached

[bharatstank]

Hello Volker,
Thank you for your support & guidance.
Best Regards
Bharat Kumar Tank