Manpower System Research Articles

Estimation of career progression and growth properties in Markov manpower systems with a competitive climate

This paper takes up the estimation of career growth properties of members in Markov manpower systems with a competitive internal climate. First, a method to estimate career characteristics prevailing in the system is devised through the modelling and analysis of cohorts within the system. Second, a new approach is developed to quantitatively model the competition in a manpower system, and is then built into the estimation process. The method is then applied to a system which effects recruitment restrictions as a means to protect/enhance the career prospects of its members. Finally, computational examples are provided to demonstrate the likely effects of the various model parameters on career growth characteristics.

Prediction of Academic Manpower System of a Polytechnic Institution in Nigeria

This study is on makovian approach in studying the behaviour of the academic staff grade transition of a Polytechnic institution in Nigeria. The objective of this study is to determine the proportion of staff recruited, promoted and withdrawn from the various grade levels in the institution over the years and also forecast the expected manpower structure of the institution for 2014/2015 session. Secondary data obtained from the Personnel Department of Delta State Polytechnic, Oghara for 2006/07 – 2011/12 sessions was used to evaluate the method. The findings from the analysis showed that the academic staff grade transition flow is stationary over the observed time period. Also, it was predicted that at the beginning of the 2014/15 session, that the expected staff structure of Delta State Polytechnic Otefe-Oghara will consist of 2 Assistant Lecturer’s, 15 Lecturer’s III, 11 Lecturer’s II, 12 Lecturer’s I, 9 Senior Lecturer’s, 7 Principal Lecturer’s and 7 Chief Lecturer’s; if the current recruitment and promotion policies in the institution remain unchanged. The predicted distributed structure of academic staff of Delta state Polytechnic for 2014/15 session was observed to be approximately normally distributed.

Analysis of manpower system with alert human resource personnel

Manpower planning is concerned with matching the supply of people with the jobs available in any organization. Every year, during the months of appraisal, organizations record high rates of employee turnover. Due to various reasons, manpower employed leave the system periodically. Loss of manpower also occurs due to dismissal and death of employees. This loss of manpower has to be compensated by suitable recruitment. But, recruitment cannot be made frequently since it involves cost. Also recruitment of new employees and giving them

Some majorisation results in optimal manpower control

The notion of majorisation arises in various aspects of optimisation. In manpower control, a recurrent issue is the issue of obtaining an optimal control for the system since it is possible to have control that does not have a unique value. In this paper, we review some majorisation inequality results and use these results in the optimal control of Markovian manpower system. A Pareto balance control and approximate control are established. A procedure for using a majorisation–minimisation algorithm to optimise a control cost function is highlighted.

The multivariate non-homogeneous Markov manpower system in a departmental mobility framework

The present paper proposes a non-homogeneous multivariate Markov manpower system in the general category of mathematical human resource planning. More specifically, we suggest a model, which takes into account the divisions existing in an organization categorizing its employees into several groups (departments). In this context, it considers not only possible transitions within the departments (intra-department transitions), but also, transfers of personnel between departments (inter-department transitions). Additionally, the proposed modeling structure is accompanied by cost and stocks (personnel) objectives which are set and in the sequel could be achieved by controlling either the recruitment policy or the allocation policy of employees transferred to other departments (or both). We use a minmax fuzzy goal-programming approach, under different operating assumptions, in order to keep the operational cost below desired aspiration levels and reach desirable stock structures in the presence of system’s constraints and regulations. The paper concludes with a numerical illustration.

Online Enrollment System of Liceo de Cagayan University

The Online Enrollment System was proposed for the enhancement of the current enrollment system of Liceo de Cagayan University. The study aimed at creating a system that would provide another option for enrolling and that would compensate for the school’s lack of manpower and time-consuming system. The database of the system is the dbEnrollment. It contains many tables and stores information such as student’s academic records, secretary’s files and records, class schedules, pre-requisites, subjects, curricula and other essential data needed in the system. The proposed system caters to old, freshmen, transferees and shiftees with the following services: subject evaluation, posting of grades, viewing of curriculum, add and update profile. The system lessens the enrollment time, speeds up file management, and minimizes inaccuracies and errors.  Keywords - Enrollment, Evaluation, Interface, Online, Academic load

System dynamics of manpower planning strategies under various demand scenarios

Article history: Received August 10, 2012 Accepted 28 September 2012 Available online September 28 2012 The development of human resources recruitment and training strategies in a dynamic environment poses a challenge to many policy makers in various organisations. The goal of every human resource manager is to recruit, train and deploy the right personnel at the right place and at the right time in order to meet organizational requirements. We develop a system dynamics simulation model that captures the dynamic behaviour of a typical corporate manpower system. Three major strategies are indentified and simulated under different manpower demand scenarios. Based on a set of performance indices, the impact of the strategies is simulated under assumed demand scenarios including steady increasing, fluctuating, and s-shaped demand. Useful managerial insights are derived from the study. The model is a decision support tool for developing reliable dynamic manpower policies in terms of recruitment, training capacity, available skills, and attrition. This approach can assist organizations to design effective manpower strategies. © 2012 Growing Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Fuzzy system dynamics and optimization with application to manpower systems

The dynamics of human resource recruitment and training in an uncertain environment creates a challenge for many policy makers in various organisations. In the presence of fuzzy manpower demand and training capacity, many companies fear losing critical human resources when their employees leave. As such, the development of effective dynamic policies for recruitment and training in a fuzzy dynamic environment is imperative. In this frame of mind, a fuzzy systems dynamics modelling approach is proposed to enable the policy maker to develop reliable dynamic policies relating recruitment, training, and available skills, from a systems perspective. It is anticipated in this study that fuzzy system dynamics and optimization approach would help organizations to design effective manpower policies and strategies.

Volunteer Militaries, The Draft, and Support for War

This study models how a nation's military manpower system affects the decision to go to war. Manpower systems differ primarily in how they distribute costs: the volunteer system shares the war's manpower costs broadly, whereas the draft forces a subset of the population to bear a disproportionate share of the load. This difference affects an office‐ and policy‐motivated politician's decision to go to war. The draft induces prowar policy‐makers to pursue more wars than the volunteer military does, whereas the volunteer system induces antiwar policy‐makers to pursue more wars than the draft does. The manpower systems cannot be generically ranked by efficiency because each makes errors the other avoids, but the volunteer system induces selection of more efficient wars for a large class of plausible preference distributions.

Optimal recruitment strategies in a multi-level manpower planning model

Markov manpower planning models have extensively been analysed in the past in order to find an optimal personnel strategy for which the stocks of the manpower system evolve towards desirable ones. So far, those models do not take into account interactions among different organizational decision levels. In this paper, a multi-level manpower planning model is presented that considers, besides the desirable stock vector at overall level, proposals for the departmental stocks from lower organizational levels. Attainability of the stock vectors at departmental level is examined under control by recruitment and interdepartmental transitions. A multi-level optimization algorithm is presented to determine an optimal recruitment strategy resulting in attainable and acceptable stocks that are a compromise between the proposal from the top and the proposals from the departments.

The Entropy Theoretic Measure for Manpower Systems in Perspective

This study provides a realistic appraisal of the use of entropy measures in manpower systems. The appraisal shows that the existing entropy measures for manpower systems give a partial picture of the behavioural mechanism of the system. Consequent upon this, we propose the use of transition probabilities of the imbedded Markov chain for manpower systems as inputs in the entropy statistic. The proposal is illustrated by refining the basic Shannon entropy rate and implemented in Matlab computing environment.Keywords: entropy, manpower system, Markov chain, Matlab package.

OPTIMAL TRAINING POLICY FOR PROMOTION - STOCHASTIC MODELS OF MANPOWER SYSTEMS

In this paper, the optimal planning of manpower training programmes in a manpower system with two grades is discussed. The planning of manpower training within a given organization involves a trade-off between training costs and expected return. These planning problems are examined through models that reflect the random nature of manpower movement in two grades. To be specific, the system consists of two grades, grade 1 and grade 2. Any number of persons in grade 2 can be sent for training and after the completion of training, they will stay in grade 2 and will be given promotion as and when vacancies arise in grade 1. Vacancies arise in grade 1 only by wastage. A person in grade 1 can leave the system with probability p. Vacancies are filled with persons in grade 2 who have completed the training. It is assumed that there is a perfect passing rate and that the sizes of both grades are fixed. Assuming that the planning horizon is finite and is T, the underlying stochastic process is identified as a finite state Markov chain and using dynamic programming, a policy is evolved to determine how many persons should be sent for training at any time k so as to minimize the total expected cost for the entire planning period T.

Determination of recruitment and transition strategies

PurposeThis paper aims to describe the development and application of a manpower planning system for the Slovenian armed forces using a system approach, system dynamics (SD) and numerical optimization.Design/methodology/approachThe model of the hierarchical manpower system was developed by SD methodology and formulated in discrete time space. The problem of tracking the goal trajectories in the eight topmost ranks at the prescribed boundaries was solved by application of the quadratic performance index and finite automata (FA) which was used for classification of acceptable strategies. Genetic algorithms (GA) as well as pattern search were compared at the numeric optimization.FindingsEmploying SD and a system approach increases the understanding of the system control. The definition of an optimum strategy, which would consider only target values for ranks within prescribed parameter boundaries, could provide an undesired oscillatory solution. Inclusion of rules by FA to determine acceptable strategies based on the time response of a strategy provided acceptable, nonoscillatory solutions. GA and pattern search were considered where pattern search was shown to be significantly more suitable for the task of control strategy determination.Practical implicationsThe developed system and methodology was applied by the Slovenian Armed Forces in the process of restructuring.Social implicationsThe developed approach permits a moderate transition to the new desired structure. Restructuring without a clear understanding of the system structure and dynamics might result in undesired social impacts such as strikes and riots.Originality/valueProvision of the systemic view of the hierarchical manpower system and application of FA to determine the proper control of a complex system.

A renewal model with duration in a grade for manpower planning

The duration of employees in a grade in a manpower system can influence the grade in which the employees are promoted to. Thus, an employee can have a double jump in promotion due to his/her length of stay in the grade before promotion. Existing Renewal models for manpower planning have not incorporated the duration of stay in a grade before promotion in the framework of the Renewal model. Delay in promotion could be due to economic recession during that period or lack of vacancy in the higher grade. However, this can increase the level of attrition in the organization. Thus, in this paper, the duration of employees in a grade before promotion is incorporated into the framework of the Renewal model. Specifically, we examined the case in which the employee has spent at least the minimum period in the grade. Such incorporation would go a long way to assessing the impact of duration of stay in a grade before promotion on the transition of the employees and gives room for precise prediction of the transitions in the system. We showed that the variance of the grade size at any time t in such a system is twice the variance of the recruitment in that grade at that time.

Military Conscription and the (Socially) Optimal Number of Boots on the Ground

In this article, we develop a model of military manpower mobilization. We use the model to evaluate the efficacy of volunteer‐ and conscription‐based manpower systems within a framework of social welfare maximization. We find that neither conscription nor a volunteer approach is likely to be “first best” because of asymmetries of information and constraints on the military pay structure. We then modify the general model by considering the possibility that recruits with high civilian productivity are also more capable soldiers and find that, under such circumstances, conscription may be a more benign form of manpower mobilization than previously understood. We also consider and evaluate various alternatives available to militaries attempting to minimize the welfare losses associated with manpower mobilization.

A proportionality model of Markov manpower systems

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to construct a model of hierarchical manpower systems which follow proportionality policies in recruitment and promotion of their staff, ostensibly with a view to safeguard the career interests of their existing employees.Design/methodology/approachThe manpower systems are modeled as Markov systems, and their inherent characteristics and long‐term behavior are studied.FindingsSignificantly it is shown that such proportionality systems do not compromise on flexibility in the long term, and can also provide an additional means of controlling the blend of manpower in the system. The theoretical results were tested with real‐world data, and a good degree of conformity was observed between the theoretical predictions and the actually observed behaviour.Practical implicationsThe model can also be applied to organizations which outsource a part of their work, the outsource workforce being notionally being considered as recruits to the system.Originality/valueOutsourcing of work is being practiced on an ever‐increasing scale nowadays, and becoming, at times, even controversial, and as a consequence, an increasing number of organizations are resorting to protectionist policies; the model in this paper provides a theoretical framework in which to view and analyze this phenomenon.

Hidden heterogeneity in manpower systems: A Markov-switching model approach

In modeling manpower systems, it is of crucial importance to deal with heterogeneity. Until recently, manpower models are dealing with heterogeneity due to observable sources, neglecting heterogeneity due to latent sources. In this paper a two-step procedure is introduced. In the first step personnel groups homogeneous with respect to the transition probabilities are determined in a classical way by taking into account the observable sources of heterogeneity. In the second step heterogeneity caused by latent sources is handled. A multinomial Markov-switching manpower model is introduced that deals with heterogeneity due to latent sources for the internal flows as well as for the wastage flows. The model incorporates the mover-stayer principle. A re-estimation algorithm is presented to estimate the parameters of the Markov-switching manpower model. The switching approach offers a methodology to build a Markov model with personnel groups as states that are more homogeneous, and therefore can contribute to a better validity of the manpower model.

On the asymptotic effect of examination malpractice on the structure of a Markovian multi-echelon educational system

The theoretical framework in modelling the transition process in this study is analogous to the imbedding transformation of the transition process in a manpower system into a k × k matrix space as in the Young/Almond-type model. We prove that in an environment saddled with examination malpractice, where strategies to curb the malpractice rate are generally not effective, then, against every possible growth rate, the students’ stocks in each level of an educational institution where examination malpractice is prohibited will degenerate to zero in the long-run. An example problem is included to illustrate this assertion.

Extracting Code Resource from OWL by Matching Method Signatures using UML Design Document

Software companies develop projects in various domains, but hardly archive the programs for future use. The method signatures are stored in the OWL and the source code components are stored in HDFS. The OWL minimizes the software development cost considerably. The design phase generates many artifacts. One such artifact is the UML class diagram for the project that consists of classes, methods, attributes, relations etc., as metadata. Methods needed for the project can be extracted from this OWL using UML metadata. The UML class diagram is given as input and the metadata about the method is extracted. The method signature is searched in OWL for the similar method prototypes and the appropriate code components will be extracted from the HDFS and reused in a project. By doing this process the time, manpower system resources and cost will be reduced in Software development.

Determination of recruitment age in Markov manpower systems

The chronological age of members in an organisation has been found to be one of the determinants of their effectiveness, efficiency and performance, and organisational planners find it advantageous to monitor the age distributions in the hierarchical grades of the organisation, to maintain homogeneity and proper flow of personnel up the hierarchy. In this paper, methods have been devised to maintain specified age distributions for hierarchical systems in general, and also for a class of hierarchical organisations which follow ‘proportionality’ policies. Proportionality policies are those that restrict the recruitment to every level of the hierarchy to be in proportion to the promotions into that level, and are of relevance to organisations which outsource a part of their work, the outsourced workforce being notionally viewed as recruits to the system, and also to those which ostensibly aim to protect the career interests of their existing employees through such policies. The required or specified age char...