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A comparison of techniques for scheduling non-homogeneous employees in a service environment subject to non-cyclical demand. (Volumes I and II)

This dissertation has addressed the issue of labor scheduling, focussing primarily on environments in which employees are limited in number and/or not continuously available for work. New modeling procedures have been developed for these environments. / Three shift scheduling procedures were developed: (1) an iterative construction improvement procedure (HO), (2) a combination single-break-position linear programming and heuristic procedure (LP), and (3) a combination break-less linear programming and heuristic procedure (NT). Six tour scheduling procedures--originating from the three shift scheduling procedures crossed with two methods of making days-off determinations--were compared. / LP was found to be the best shift scheduling procedure, while one of the HO-based procedures was best for tour scheduling. The NT and NT-based shift and tour scheduling procedures were the poorest performers, a finding with important implications for scheduling procedures which fail to schedule meal and rest breaks. / Extensive investigations into the determinants of technique performance were conducted. These investigations included examining the effects on technique performance of (1) problem restrictiveness and (2) the ratio of understaffing to overstaffing costs. In addition, 143 demand- and availability-based measures thought to be potential influences on performance were developed and their effect on performance evaluated through the use of stepwise regression. It is likely that some of the findings arising from these investigations will be of interest to labor scheduling practitioners. / An extensive list of interesting and potentially fruitful research avenues has been provided for the benefit of researchers considering the field of labor scheduling. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 49-06, Section: A, page: 1517. / Major Professor: Michael Jan Showalter. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1988.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_76315
ContributorsThompson, Gary Manford., Florida State University
Source SetsFlorida State University
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeText
Format690 p.
RightsOn campus use only.
RelationDissertation Abstracts International

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