Heuristic Approach to Workforce Scheduling with Combined Safety and Productivity Objective

Abstract

The workforce scheduling with combined safety and productivity objective is introduced. Typically, industrial workers are assigned to perform a set of tasks with certain safety/ergonomics hazard. To reduce their hazard exposures, it is recommended that workers be rotated among the tasks periodically within each day so that the hazard exposures do not exceed a permissible limit. Since workers have unequal skill levels, this job rotation practice can affect total system productivity. Thus, assigning the right workers to the right tasks in each period can help to increase the productivity and, at the same time, achieve the safety objective. In this paper, we present a safety-productivity workforce scheduling model. From a given numerical example, we compare the optimal solutions obtained from the productivity-based, safety-based, and safety-productivity workforce scheduling models. A heuristic approach to the workforce scheduling with combined safety and productivity objective is also developed for solving large-sized problems. Significance: While job rotation can help to enhance workplace safety, it is likely to reduce the system productivity since workers might be assigned to perform the tasks that they are not competent. This workforce scheduling problem considers both safety and productivity when developing the worker-task-period assignment solution. Thus, both safety and productivity objectives can be simultaneously achieved.