A system for incremental solution of the shift design and assignment problem comprises an interface configured to receive an incremental change and an existing schedule. The system comprises a processor to determine whether labor demand has changed; in response to labor demand having been changed, generate an updated set of shift candidates; determine a new cost function; restart a solver using the updated set of shift candidates, the existing schedule, the incremental change, and the new cost function, wherein the solver comprises a mixed integer programming (MIP) solver, and wherein the MIP solver determines simultaneously a subset of the shift candidates selected in the final schedule and a set of shift assignments of which worker is assigned to which selected shift candidate of the subset of shift candidates.