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Restaurant Shift Scheduling via Linear Optimization and Staff Constraints

emmahexa Friday, November 21, 2025

I’m working on a scheduling tool for restaurant / hospitality business owners and want to get some real feedback before I go too deep.

The idea is: you pick what matters most that week (keeping labor cost down, making schedules fair, matching staffing to projected sales, etc.), and the software automatically builds a full schedule based on who’s available and how productive each person is. No more scheduling by hand.

It would: 1. Generate a weekly schedule for you 2. Respect everyone's availability/time-off 3. Keep an eye on labor cost % 4. Adjust staffing with projected sales 5. Let you compare different “optimized” versions (cheapest, most fair, best sales coverage)

If you’re the one making schedules now, what’s the most annoying part? What would make a tool like this worth using?

Appreciate any honest thoughts!

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