SCHEDULING A WORKFORCE UNDER A PRACTICAL ANNUALIZED HOURS SCENARIO

摘要

Under annualized hours, workers are contracted to work for a certain number of hours per "year" andrnthey will work more (fewer) hours in busy (slow) periods. Annualized hours offers employers anrneconomical way to closely match demand. A problem in planning for annualized hours is the schedulingrnof workers over the year. We present a simple scheduling method for a practical annualized hoursrnscenario.rn rnAnnualized hours (AH) is a newer idea in meeting seasonal demand. Under AH, employees arerncontracted to work for a certain number of hours (say, 1800 hours) per year (or another duration) for arncertain sum of money. Employees can be asked to put in more (fewer) hours during busy (slow) periods,rnallowing employers to closely match demand. Many industries in Europe have used AH with success.rnPositive results include decreased unit cost, reduced inventory, less labor turnover and training, easierrnrecruitment, higher morale, higher quality, and better customer services.rnHow do we determine the workforce size and how to make a schedule so that daily labor requirementsrnare met and each worker will work approximately the contracted annual hours? The author hasrnillustrated elsewhere how to do this under an AH scenario [1]. In this paper, the author presents arnsimpler, yet practical, AH scenario, for which a very simple method to construct an annual schedule isrnavailable.rn rnScheduling scenario: The organization concerned operates single shift and shift length is s hours on eachrnoperating day. A "year" consists of n consecutive days, some of which may be closed for operation.rnDaily labor requirement may fluctuate. Specifically, the organization requires ri on-duty workers on day irn(ri=0 means no operation on day i). Each worker is contracted to work h hours over the "year."