Heuristic Genetic Algorithm for Workforce Scheduling with Minimum Total Worker-Location Changeover

Authors

  • Krisada Asawarungsaengkul Industrial Engineering Program, Thammasat University
  • Suebsak Nanthavanij Engineering Management Program, Thammasat University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.23055/ijietap.2008.15.4.185

Keywords:

Workforce scheduling, job rotation, work assignments, genetic algorithms, worker-location changeover

Abstract

This paper presents a heuristic genetic algorithm (GA) to find daily work assignments without hazard exposure. Its objective is twofold: (1) to determine a minimum number of workers for a given set of worker locations, and (2) to determine safety work assignments with a minimum total worker-location changeover. Firstly, a hybrid procedure to determine a lower bound and the minimum number of workers is applied to generate an initial population. Then, the GA with heuristic crossover and mutation is utilized to search for a safety work assignment solution. The swap and multi-start algorithms are also employed to improve the GA solution. The heuristic GA is able to solve both balanced and unbalanced work assignment problems. Comparing with an optimization approach, the GA can generate the safety work assignments with the minimum total worker-location changeover in much shorter computation time

Author Biographies

Krisada Asawarungsaengkul, Industrial Engineering Program, Thammasat University

K

Suebsak Nanthavanij, Engineering Management Program, Thammasat University

Suebsak Nanthavanij teaches at the Engineering Management Program, Sirindhorn International Institute of Technology, Thammasat University, Thailand. He received a B.S. degree in chemical engineering from Chulalongkorn University (Thailand) and both M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in industrial engineering from the University of Texas at Arlington (USA). His research interests include industrial ergonomics and safety, workforce scheduling, and optimization of ergonomics systems.

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Published

2022-02-26

How to Cite

Asawarungsaengkul, K., & Nanthavanij, S. (2022). Heuristic Genetic Algorithm for Workforce Scheduling with Minimum Total Worker-Location Changeover. International Journal of Industrial Engineering: Theory, Applications and Practice, 15(4), 373–385. https://doi.org/10.23055/ijietap.2008.15.4.185

Issue

Section

Operations Research

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