Abstract: The present invention provides a method for allocating appointment time windows. The steps of this method include creating a statistical estimate of a daily schedule comprising a series of estimated service orders. An actual service order is then received. This actual service order is inserted into the daily schedule by using a set of scheduling instructions for determining the least cost to employ the available service resources. At this point, this actual service order does not have a system imposed time window. The set of scheduling instructions is used to determine a time window surrounding this insertion point. If the customer accepts this time window, then the closest estimated service order is replaced by this actual service order, and the daily schedule is recomputed based upon the revised set of service orders to yield a revised daily schedule.

Abstract: The invention is directed to a method by which optimal paths are found between one or more start destinations and one or more end destinations. First destination and travel data is converted into a node and edge data format, wherein the nodes represent start points and the edges have a weight related to a travel weight. These nodes and edges are subdivided into subsets. The paths between the start nodes and each of the end nodes are determined using the node and edge representations stored in the subsets. A selected union of subsets is determined that contains the start end destinations. The optimal paths are determined by using the travel values associated with the edges connecting the nodes. The union of subsets, which may comprise less than the full amount of subsets, is loaded for the path determination. Or, when the path determination perceives that a relevant boundary has been reached in a path determination, that next subset in the union of subsets is loaded.

Abstract: The present invention provides a method for allocating appointment time windows. The steps of this method include creating a statistical estimate of a daily schedule comprising a series of estimated service orders. An actual service order is then received. This actual service order is inserted into the daily schedule by using a set of scheduling instructions for determining the least cost to employ the available service resources. At this point, this actual service order does not have a system imposed time window. The set of scheduling instructions is used to determine a time window surrounding this insertion point. If the customer accepts this time window, then the closest estimated service order is replaced by this actual service order, and the daily schedule is recomputed based upon the revised set of service orders to yield a revised daily schedule.

Abstract: The invention is directed to a method by which optimal paths are found between one or more start destinations and one or more end destinations. First destination and travel data is converted into a node and edge data format, wherein the nodes represent start points and the the edges have a weight related to a travel weight. These nodes and edges are subdivided into subsets. The paths between the start nodes and each of the end nodes are determined using the node and edge representations stored in the subsets. A selected union of subsets is determined that contains the start end end destinations. The optimal paths are determined by using the travel values associated with the edges connecting the nodes. The union of subsets, which may comprise less than the full amount of subsets, is loaded for the path determination. Or, when the path determination perceives that a relevant boundary has been reached in a path determination, that next subset in the union of subsets is loaded.