Competence-based assignment of tasks to workers in factories with demand-driven manufacturing

Abstract

The paper is motivated by real problems concerning tasks assignment to workers in medium-sized upholstered furniture plants managed using the Demand-Driven Manufacturing. Although the methodology was developed for furniture plants it can be applied to other types of production plants. We involve competence coefficients, which describe the level of the worker’s skills or capabilities to perform a specific task. The competence coefficients are also used to block the possibility of assigning the given task to a worker that has no skills to do it. Additionally, we involve a dummy worker to the model which guarantees the existence of a solution to the problem. We present and discuss Integer Linear Programming Models for the posted problem that are closely related to the Generalized Assignment Problem. We also discuss the potential use of the presented methodology to solve real-life problems related to production management.