The Games of the XXIX Olympiad, also known as the 2008 Summer Olympics, will be held in Beijing from 8th to 24th August 2008. Approximately 10,500 athletes are expected to participate in the 28 Olympic summer sports hosted by the Games. A few of the sports will be held in locations other than Beijing. For example, Hong Kong will host the equestrian events. A total of six Olympic Equestrian Events and one Paralympic Equestrian Event will be held in Hong Kong from 9th to 20th August 2008. The Olympic events include individual and team competitions in dressage, jumping and eventing; the Paralympic event is dressage only.
Our client is "The Equestrian Events (Hong Kong) of the Games of the XXIX Olympiad Company Limited" (the HK Equestrian Events) - the executive arm of "The Equestrian Committee (Hong Kong) of Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad" which was established by the HKSAR Government. The HK Equestrian Events is reponsible for all the organization and hosting of the Olympic Equestrian Events.
To prepare for the 2008 Beijing Games and to test the organizer's readiness, a scaled-downed version of the Games was held in August/September 2007. These rehearsal "test" games were called the "Good Luck Beijing" (GLB) Games and test all aspects related to the Games, such as competition venues, logistics, traffic control, medical services and security. In Hong Kong, the equestrian test game is called the "Good Luck Beijing - HKSAR 10th Anniversary Cup" to concurrently celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Hong Kong Hand Over. In order to orangize these games, volunteers/staffs were needed to handle various logistics, venue preparation, paperwork and publicity activities. In fact, roughly a thousand volunteers/staff had to be rostered and assigned jobs. It was a challenging problem to effectively schedule and roster all these staffs to ensure that the games ran smoothly.
We used modern Web 2.0 architecture, lightweight Python frameworks, and rapid prototyping to create an AI rostering and workforce deployment system called the "Workforce Management System" (WMS). The system used AI rules and rostering algorithm to effective assign shifts and tasks to ensure adequate staffs are available to cover all tasks at all times.
Using our Workforce Management System, we ensured that the "Good Luck Beijing" equestrian games ran smoothly and got the International Olympic Committee's approval on Hong Kong readiness preparation. According to the President of the International Olympic Committee, Mr. Jacques Rogge: "I am very happy with the preparations. I have spoken with the riders and they are very happy,... Everything is progressing well, and we will have an absolutely fabulous Games here next year."