NaMOS; scheduling Patrol Boats and crews for the Royal Australian Navy

A system for optimum allocating of crews to a new class of patrol boats was developed by Horn et al as part of a feasibility study commissioned by Australian Defence Forces. In their work, Horn et al implemented a pilot study of multicrewing via simulated annealing coupled with unique heuristic techniques within a multi-stage problem-solving framework. This paper outlines an extension of that work that was carried out under contract by the research arm of the Australian Department of Defence (Defence Science and Technology Organisation, aka DSTO). This work not only embraces, but also extends, the work of Horn et al. As part of this research an open and extendable optimization platform was developed. Two optimization routines (including adaptive simulated annealing (ASA)) were developed and implemented as plug-ins to the framework. Additionally, human-computer interaction (HCI) principles were used to develop a new user interface for the optimization framework. The system was successfully deployed and is now being used by the Patrol Boat Force Element Group of the Royal Australian Navy.