The Centralized Child Care Slot Allocation Problem

The child care market has become a recent issue these last years in Germany, triggered by the KiFöG Law (any 1-year-old child or older has the right to have a slot in a day-care facility) going into effect in August 2013. Nowadays, the way child care facilities in Germany perform its children allocation is decentralized, causing significant inefficiencies and discontent among, not only families but other stakeholders involved. This book will contribute with methods for optimizing children¿s day-care demand fulfilment, particularly with regard to capacity planning and allocation. This study will consist of the creation of a centralized model of the market for children¿s day-care and its simulation in an optimization software called IBM ILOG CPLEX.