About Penalties

BlockBuster is designed to find the most cost-effective (least expensive) solution to solve your scheduling issue based on all the values typed into the Parameters table. You must keep that in mind when you are deciding on the penalty to use.

Although fictional values are used to express penalties, you should use realistic currency units in relation to the real costs that are listed within the various parameters. Real costs include such values as Fixed Overhead, Wage rate, and Variable Overhead. There are occasions, however, when you must apply a heavy penalty to prevent BlockBuster from creating runs you do not want.

The following table discusses the three general types of penalties used in BlockBuster: Occurrence, Cumulative, and Worst case. These are considered soft rules.


Occurrence	Reduces the probability that the system will create the value against which it is placed. If a $5 Occurrence penalty was used, and the runcut yielded three runs that violated the Occurrence value by: four minutes, five minutes, and three minutes, respectively. The total penalty applied is $15. The number of minutes by which each run is in violation is NOT factored into the penalty, only each occurrence of a violation.
Cumulative	Penalizes the creation of runs that violate the legally defined boundary so that: ($) (per minute outside the legally defined value). For example, the OFF Time Upper limit is set at 15:00 for a group member and the cumulative upper penalty is set to $10. Five minutes of the OFF time are created after 15:00 across the group member which results to a total penalty of $50.
Worst Case	If a penalty of $10 is applied then BlockBuster applies the penalty such that: ($10) (x minutes)2. Because the penalty is squared, it is severe (expensive for the system to create). If BlockBuster was forced to apply the Worst Case penalty, it favors creating more runs that violate the legally defined boundary by less rather than having fewer runs that violate the legally defined boundary by a larger amount: One illegal run that is 60 minutes in violation where a $10 penalty is in place results in: (60 minutes)2($10) = $36 000 Whereas, ten 6 minute illegal runs in a Group Member with a $10 penalty results in: (6)2 ($10)(10 illegal runs) = 3600

For instance, applying a penalty of $20,000 on Undesirable, Miscellaneous run types greatly reduces the probability that BlockBuster will create them because doing so is far from the cheapest option. (Remember, BlockBuster is looking for the cheapest solution). Large penalties are also warranted to control Undesirable Pay time.

If you use large penalties, increase them incrementally to find the value that is necessary and sufficient for the improvement you require.