Tactical Manpower Planning via Programming Under Uncertainty

This paper presents models for different types of manpower pooling policies. A multi-grade manpower system with mutually exclusive skills is considered. The work load imposed is a random variable characterized by the known joint distribution of the number of jobs to be performed and of the time to do a job. The basic models are developed as a tool for manpower planning in the jobbing workshops of an oil company. The resulting "two-stage programmes under uncertainty" are shown to reduce to mixed-integer linear programmes. The models are then generalized to permit their use in a larger class of manpower planning problems.     

A Survey of Manpower Planning Models and Their Application

Since the late 1950s, much work has been done on developing models of manpower systems which may be used for the purposes of planning. Many organizations have made successful use of such models, but in spite of these successes, manpower planning models are only gradually coming into widespread use. The aim of this paper is to review the models which have been developed, concentrating on their assumptions and applications rather than on mathematical or statistical details. A common theme of successful applications is that good presentation of results and ease of use are more important to users than theoretical sophistication.     

Corporate manpower planning

In this paper the necessity of corporate manpower planning is discussed and the growing interest in it within many organizations. In particular medium and long term forecasting in rather large and structured organizations are explained and the need for tools to get a survey of the evolution of their personnel strength. These tools should help management and staff-members of a planning or personnel department to design alternative policies concerning promotions, recruitments, etc.We will present a planning method which satisfies these requirements. The interactive manpower planning system FORMASY presents forecasts concerning the evolution of the personnel strength and makes it possible to assess the impacts of alternative policies. This planning system is based on a Markov model and is being used on a general purpose computer in several Dutch organizations, both industrial and governmental.FORMASY has proved its value for practical manpower planning which will be explained by means of a case-study with the Royal Dutch Airforce.     

A Bivariate Model for Markov Manpower Planning Systems

Markov models are being extensively used for analysis of manpower planning systems. Most of these models concentrate either on estimating the gradewise distribution of future manpower structure, given the existing structure and promotion policies, or on deriving policies towards promotion, given the required future structure. However, in many large organizations, agreements between employee unions and management result in the framing of policies towards promotion based either on seniority (length of service in the grade) or on performance (as in the case of ‘high fliers’). In this paper these two criteria are considered in a bivariate distribution framework. The transition probabilities for promotion obtained from the Markov model are further translated into required seniority and performance rating. The procedure is illustrated through an example.     

An integrated staff-sizing approach considering feasibility of scheduling decision

This paper presents an integrated staff-sizing system for analyzing and determining workforce management policies with consideration of staff flexibility in service organizations, which addresses and captures the integrated requirements between long-term manpower planning and short-term staff scheduling in the service sector. Multiple Objective Linear Programming (MOLP) is applied to optimize several diversified goals. Solution methods to the MOLP models for the staff planning and staff scheduling are developed respectively, then a solution approach is proposed to iteratively revise the unacceptable staff-sizing plan or scheduling plan. Finally, an example of nurse sizing is analyzed and computational studies are carried out to investigate managerial insights.     

Corporate manpower planning: a review of models

Manpower planning has achieved maturity during the past decade. Personnel practitioners have become conversant with the analysis of manpower systems, the use of quantitative techniques, and have developed a sound approach to the whole question of manpower management. But, whilst they no longer rely on the management scientist for using those models and other techniques now widely available, there is a continued contribution to be made in advancing the field. This paper reviews the practical relecance of existing models. It concentrates on techniques for evaluating manpower supply and career management problems, distinguishing especially between the roles played by exploratory and normative models. The author hopes that this article will give management scientists a realistic appraisal of current practice and provide pointers as to where developments are most needed.     

Personnel Recruitment Policies and Long-Term Production Planning

Any organization or industry operating in a market where there is unmet demand will be under considerable pressure to meet the demand as quickly as possible. This short-term objective can be met by rapidly expanding productive capacity in terms of both plant or other equipment and also manpower. If the commodity in demand is durable—e.g. housing, cars, computers—then when the initial requirement is met, further output is for replacement purposes. Production during the expansion phase, planned to eliminate the backlog of demand may be much greater than that needed for the next phase, meeting recurrent replacement demand. If capacity is allowed to run down, a later increase in demand will possibly find the organization with too little capacity. There follows a potentially continuing cycle of under- and over-production. Since manpower comprises a significant part of the capacity, this creates a possible cycle of under- and over-employment.Mathematical models of manpower systems can be adapted to investigate the consequences of controlling recruitment policies over fairly long periods of time. If costs can be ascribed to both under- and over-production it is possible to combine the manpower models with mathematical programming techniques to produce optimal longterm recruitment policies.The possible development of the telephone network in the Republic of Ireland is used as an illustrative example. Here it has already been established by government operational research scientists that meeting the original target number of installations for the early 1980's would require impossibly large levels of recruitment immediately. Our model shows that, if the target were achieved, an intolerably large proportion of the workforce would be redundant in a few years time. We use a linear programming model to illustrate viable policies trading off present delays in satisfying demand against future overmanning.     

On the Asymptotic Behaviour of Age Distributions in Manpower Systems

The literature on supply models for manpower planning shows that an important consideration is the size of the discrepancy between the age or length of service distribution of the population and the age distribution which would be reached if present policies were continued indefinitely. In the present paper we study the asymptotic behaviour of the age distribution in any manpower system. An application to a decision problem in a university system is given.     

A stochastic manpower planning model under varying class sizes

Solution related to different types of manpower planning problems arising in different industries and organizations are very much helpful for proper planning and implementation of different objectives. Previously those type of problems are mostly solved under the deterministic set up. Gradually several scientists have developed different types of stochastic models appropriate for solving such types of problems. The present study is an attempt to develop a stochastic manpower planning model under the set up where the classes are of varying sizes and promotion occurs only on the basis of seniority. The work of second author was supported by a research fellowship from Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (Sanction No. 9/28(611)/2003-EMR-I), India.     

Recruitment Effects on Manpower Structures

Recruitment is one of the dynamics of manpower systems that can usually be most effectively controlled, always assuming that there is at any time an adequate supply of recruits to a system. In this situation, recruitment can be fixed to meet immediate demands, or it can be part of long-term planning programmes designed perhaps to alleviate a skewness in the length of service profile without reducing the strength of the system greatly. In general, recruitment levels will necessarily be connected with wastage and promotion in a system as well as with the desired growth of the system. The process of determining manpower-planning policies, hereunder recruitment levels, is open to a variety of options with regard to the underlying assumptions that are made: observed experience can be assumed to continue; promotion policies can be adjusted and the consequences estimated; recruitment levels can be allowed to meet immediate demands but with the restriction of some maximum level; or recruitment levels are pre-fixed on the basis of some perhaps even arbitrary management desires. Each of these options and each accompanying recruitment policy will affect the internal structure of the system, with regard to both rank and length of service profiles. This paper employs established projection and promotion models for hierarchical manpower systems to consider recruitment policies and their effects on internal structures. Various policy models are outlined and results presented for a particular application.     

A model for promotion rate control in hierarchical manpower systems

In optimization models of hierarchical manpower systems, thenumbers promoted from each of the grades in a time period arenormally considered as decision variables. As a result, promotionrates, defined in terms of the proportions of staff promoted,can vary substantially from period to period in these models.Policies of this type may be unacceptable in practice becauseof their adverse impact on staff morale. In this paper, a mixedinteger programming (MIP) manpower planning model is developedfor determining minimum-cost manpower policies in which promotionrates remain stable while satisfying specified manpower requirementsover the planning period. In this MIP model, promotion ratesare considered as decision variables by using binary variables,and the model is solved by using an iterative procedure. Theuse of the approach is illustrated with representative datafor a military system.     

Sensitivity Analysis of Promotion Opportunities in Graded Organizations

This paper extends earlier work on manpower mobility in hierarchical organizations and is concerned especially with the effects of changes in hiring and separation on opportunities for internal advancement. We make use of a fractional flow model of personnel to highlight the links between personnel flows and vacancy flows, and then derive formulae that can be used to simulate the impact of changes in grade-size targets, hiring policy and attrition rates on promotion opportunities for staff. The model is then illustrated by application to data on faculty staffing in a large university.     

The design of colliery information and control systems

The paper is concerned with describing an investigation of information usage in the control of colliery operations. The premise of the work is that to make the most of new information retrieval technology currently being installed in collieries research in needed to provide compatible advances in methods of information usage. The approach adopted was to construct a continuous simulation model using system dynamics capable of providing a laboratory assessment of alternative managerial control policies based on alternative sources and levels of aggregation of information.The model developed represents a typical colliery situation composed of three working coal-faces and incorporating planning, production, development and manpower sectors. The face sectors transform coal reserves to mined coal output, under manpower constraints and geological shocks, and these are all interlinked by means of allocation policies for manpower and machine shifts.A range of policies for the exercise of control through these allocations are considered subject to a range of shocks. It is concluded that, although there are difficulties in designing single policies which are universally best, there are clear advantages associated with fully integrated colliery policies based on information inputs from all aspects of the operations.     

航空机务维修的优化管理

在航空机务维修工作中,科学的管理、人力资源的合理配置对及时完成维修任务,保障训练作战计划至关重要.从装备完好率和完成任务的及时性出发,分别建立了数学优化配置模型,并给出了这两种情况下效益(成本)矩阵的构造方法,进而将优化模型转化为最优线性指派问题来处理,从而为航空机务维修工作中人力资源的优化配置提供了一种科学、合理的决策方法.     

A Method of Estimating Craft Manpower Requirements at Industry Level

Accurate estimation of future craft manpower requirements is essential to an industry if shortage of manpower on the one hand and unemployment on the other are to be avoided. Such estimation should allow for the fact that there is a range of likely outcomes, should permit modification with the passage of time and should be objective.This article proposes a method, based on studies of the printing industry, of obtaining a probabilistic forecast of future manpower requirements by treating changes in individual technical and economic factors as random variables and combining them in a statistical model. The implications of this are then examined for various policies, using a cost utility model and calculations of the expected value of unemployment resulting from different levels of recruitment.     

Manpower Planning in the United Kingdom: An Historical Review

The Manpower Planning Study Group of the Operational Research Society was formed on 16th November 1967. This paper traces the growth of manpower planning in the United Kingdom from its origins in the Second World War to the present day. It identifies a series of stages, starting with the beginnings and growing awareness of the 1950s and early 1960s, which led on to an explosive growth between 1965 and 1970, and the lengthy period of consolidation thereafter. It places on record the interest and contributions of many individuals and organizations who laid the foundations of manpower planning in this country, and review trends in methodology and the growing role of computers. The paper concludes with some notes on possible future developments.     

Computational and mathematical organization theory: Perspective and directions

Computational and mathematical organization theory is an interdisciplinary scientific area whose research members focus on developing and testing organizational theory using formal models. The community shares a theoretical view of organizations as collections of processes and intelligent adaptive agents that are task oriented, socially situated, technologically bound, and continuously changing. Behavior within the organization is seen to affect and be affected by the organization's, position in the external environment. The community also shares a methodological orientation toward the use of formal models for developing and testing theory. These models are both computational (e.g., simulation, emulation, expert systems, computer-assisted numerical analysis) and mathematical (e.g., formal logic, matrix algebra, network analysis, discrete and continuous equations). Much of the research in this area falls into four areas: organizational design, organizational learning, organizations and information technology, and organizational evolution and change. Historically, much of the work in this area has been focused on the issue how should organizations be designed. The work in this subarea is cumulative and tied to other subfields within organization theory more generally. The second most developed area is organizational learning. This research, however, is more tied to the work in psychology, cognitive science, and artificial intelligence than to general organization theory. Currently there is increased activity in the subareas of organizations and information technology and organizational evolution and change. Advances in these areas may be made possible by combining network analysis techniques with an information processing approach to organizations. Formal approaches are particularly valuable to all of these areas given the complex adaptive nature of the organizational agents and the complex dynamic nature of the environment faced by these agents and the organizations.This paper was previously presented at the 1995 Informs meeting in Los Angeles, CA.     

Short-term manpower planning for MRT carriage maintenance under mixed deterministic and stochastic demands

The purpose of this research is to develop two manpower supply planning models and a solution algorithm for mass rapid transit carriage maintenance under mixed deterministic and stochastic demands. These models are formulated as mixed integer programs that are characterized as NP-hard. We employ problem decomposition techniques, coupled with the CPLEX mathematical programming solver, to develop an algorithm that is capable of efficiently solving the problems. The models and the method used currently in actual operations are evaluated by a simulation-based evaluation method. Finally, we perform a case study using real operating data from a Taiwan MRT maintenance facility. The preliminary results are good, showing that the models could be useful for planning carriage maintenance manpower supply.     

Modelling heterogeneity in manpower planning: dividing the personnel system into more homogeneous subgroups

Manpower planning is very useful for human resource management in large organizations. Most manpower models are concerned with the prediction of the future behaviour of the staff: they might leave the organization, get promoted or acquire more and new skills. This behaviour can vary a lot among different employees, what makes prediction difficult. It is common to tackle this problem by dividing the whole heterogeneous personnel system in several more homogeneous subgroups. This approach is often used to develop manpower planning models for prediction, control or optimization. Although the division in homogeneous subcategories is a fundamental and important step in the application of the models, up till now literature neglects to discuss a procedure to deal with this in practice. This paper suggests a general framework to find the distinguished homogeneous subcategories by determining and considering observable sources of personnel heterogeneity. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Prospect Award 1981: A Manpower Planning Model for Mobile Repairmen

The country's largest vending machine operators and distributors were faced with the problem of evaluating manpower requirements and structure for the repair and maintenance work force, and of deciding where additions to this force should be located. This paper describes the formulation and application of a solution to the problem which has had beneficial effects far beyond the scope originally envisaged.The work force concerned operates a breakdown repair service which requires random journeys within each individual's prescribed area. The developed model evaluates the work content, and thus manpower requirements, of a region based on the number of machines, the breakdown rates, the repair times and the journey time. The travel component is automatically adjusted for growth in the work force.Analysis of the model's sensitivity to the key factors and the development of the relationship between utilisation and service level have enabled the company to improve service performance by 15% while also achieving a 67% increase in productivity.