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Calibrating cross-training to meet demand mix variation and employee absence
Journal article   Open access   Peer reviewed

Calibrating cross-training to meet demand mix variation and employee absence

Jordi Olivella and David Nembhard
European journal of operational research, Vol.248(2), pp.462-472
01/16/2016
DOI: 10.1016/j.ejor.2015.07.036
url
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejor.2015.07.036View
Published (Version of record) Open Access

Abstract

•We study the cross-training that a work team needs in order to cope with demand mix variation.•Demand mix variation is defined in a straightforward, business sense manner.•A certain level of absences is also considered.•To numerically solve the problem a constraint-based selection procedure is developed. We address the problem of determining the cross-training that a work team needs in order to cope with demand mix variation and absences. We consider the case in which all workers can be trained on all tasks, the workforce is a resource that determines the capacity and a complete forecasting of demand is not available. The demand mix variation that the organization wants to be able to cope with is fixed by establishing a maximum time to devote to each product. We contend that this approach is straightforward, has managerial practicality and can be applied to a broad range of practical scenarios. It is required that the demand mix variation be met, even if there are a certain level of absences. To numerically solve the mathematical problem, a constraint-based selection procedure is developed, which we term CODEMI. We provide illustrated examples demonstrating solution quality for the approximation, and we report on an illustrative set of computational cases.
 Constraint selection Cross-training Flexibility Manpower planning Production

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