Some statistical aspects of manpower planning in the civil service

A special feature of modern manpower planning methods is the use of computer-based statistical models, and the Civil Service Department is taking the lead in their development and use for manpower planning in the non-industrial Civil Service. Account is being taken of related data requirements in the development of a new Personnel Record Information System which will replace a range of existing records.Development work in hand covers both the “demand” and “supply” aspects of manpower planning and a bank of generalized “supply” models is in operation. Stationary population, renewal and Markovian principles are involved, and the particular statistical problems of modelling small manpower groups are being met in the development of a “small group” simulation model.     

Production planning in practice

The changes and pressures facing the manufacturing and engineering industries today are increasing the importance of effective aggregate manpower and production planning. Several different theoretical optimisation models to tackle this problem have been described in detail in the literature but there have been few applications of them in practice.The reasons for this are many but include: the difficulty in expressing managements' conflicting and mixed objectives in an objective function; the necessity to oversimplify real life systems to enable these methods to be used; the simplistic approach to manpower planning used in these models; the difficulty in gaining managements' acceptance and finally the fact that what management actually wants is a tool to assist them in planning and decision making.What is being used by many managements is a case-study deterministic simulation model. Many companies are adopting this type of model for all types of planning and twelve out of twenty-seven companies visited in a research project described in this paper were using this type of model for aggregate manpower and production planning. It is proving to be an effective management tool and is being readily accepted principally because modern specialised financial modelling languages are enabling these models to be built, understood and used by non-specialist managers.     

The state of the art— long range economic and manpower forecasting

This paper discusses the present state of the art in long range economic and manpower forecasting. The problem of comprehensive long range forecasting is viewed as one of integrating classical econometric forecasting models with detailed interindustry and manpower models. Major attention is given here to the problem of output conversion— translating aggregate econometric forecasts into industry detail—and the manner in which this is accomplished in the major U.S. forecasting models. Problems involved in projecting input-output coefficients and labor productivity are analyzed and some serious deficiencies in U.S. occupational data are identified.     

Forecasting lead times with economic data

Procurement lead time estimates are critical factors in production planning; however, they are generally based on a buyer's experience. The Westinghouse Corporation developed a linear model which successfully predicted procurement lead times for hot and cold rolled steel. This paper discusses nine models which use utilization and inventory data to predict lead time planning factors for aluminum, magnesium, steel and titanium products. The Lockheed-Georgia Company, which produces aerospace products, provided data for this research. The functional form of the models is significant and suggests that a nonlinear transformation of utilization based upon simple queueing models is a significant predictor of lead time duration.     

A Simulation Metamodel for Response-Time Planning*

Field service management continues to be a major challenge for many service organizations as companies are required to provide more service with less resources. Especially in information intense environments, short response times for service calls are essential to avoid disruptions to a business office or production facility. Managers must regularly assess their manpower needs, and ensure that their allocation and operational decisions lead to the best service at the lowest cost. Xerox Corporation provides copiers, duplicators, and printing systems to an international market. Xerox operates a service network consisting of over 30,000 trained service personnel, each allocated to service regions by the service planning staff. Response-time planning involves many challenging problems: requirements planning at the national level, allocation planning at the district level, and operational planning at the team level. Customer service is critical and is commonly measured by response time—the time that elapses from when a service call is placed to when a service engineer begins service. This paper discusses how Xerox Corporation has used simulation models and metamodels to improve response-time planning and field service operations.     

Manpower planning for maintenance jobs in process industries

This paper describes a model for allocating the weekly requirement of manpower for maintenance jobs in the process units. We develop a simple procedure for the solution of the manpower allocation problem which has to deal with planned and unplanned jobs during a planning period. The solution procedure is illustrated by a numerical example. Possible extensions of this model are also discussed.     

Improving human resources for health planning in developing economies

There is a universal consensus that human resources represent the heart and soul of effective health systems everywhere. However, despite this consensus, human resource planning in low income countries remains a neglected, often poorly implemented and ineffective component of health-system development. The planning exercises that do take place are often inefficient, use inappropriate planning models or fail to adequately prioritize human resource investment decisions. This article briefly discusses possible reasons why this failure occurs and describes four key steps that can help health system planners more effectively prioritize and link human resource for health investment decisions to health system strategy and programmatic initiatives. Implications for human resource development practice and national human resource development are discussed.     

Developing a manpower strategy for an industry

This paper considers the following issues for developing an industry manpower strategy. An idea of the national system that exists for implementing a manpower strategy. The main questions arising from the strategy, and a definition of manpower planning. From this, the information and analysis techniques used to identify the strategy. The first application produces a manpower picture of the foundry industry. For company manpower planning the paper describes a manpower model of a company, and how the relationship between the activity and employment patterns of boundries was investigated. The industry findings are verified by company manpower planning investigations using the same information and techniques. The conclusions discuss some of the strengths and weaknesses of using this approach.     

Linear programming techniques in R & D project planning

In a multi-project industrial R & D organization the selection of projects with potentially good payoffs has to be fitted in with the planning of on-going projects as they compete for the same expert staff, laboratory equipment, pilot plant rigs and other facilities and resources. A linear programming approach to this planning problem takes account of any flexibility possible in allocating resources to projects, and in their timing in finding the ‘best’ plan. This is the one which maximises the potential payoff for the whole ‘portfolio’ of projects and makes the most efficient use of the available resources. The principles of the formulation of such LP models and the interpretation of the results produced in terms of practical planning are discussed.     

An integrated approach for manpower planning in the service sector

The manpower planning problem receives considerable attention by the management of service organizations because they are typically labor intensive. Not only must optimal staff sizes be determined over an extended horizon, but optimal staff schedules which assign labor to tours of duty and specific tasks, given the available staff size, must also be found. Adding to the complexity arising from the interrelatedness of the staff-sizing and staff-scheduling problems is the existence of the conflicting multiple objectives of minimizing costs and maximizing customer service. The few methodologies reported in the literature which treat the complete manpower planning problem as stated above have several shortcomings. Some techniques place a severe strain on computational capabilities. Also, these methods confound the specification of the goal levels with the analysis of the relative goal weightings. Often the specification of the desired goal levels is made at a different level in the organizational hierarchy than the specification of the relative importance of the various goals. This paper suggests an approach which overcomes these shortcomings. The methodology utilizes a simulation model with an imbedded heuristic procedure for the staff-scheduling problem to identify realistic aggregate staff-size goals to be used in a multiple-objective staff-sizing model. The methodology is applied to the manpower planning problem of a large sectional center post office and the managerial benefits are discussed.     

Regression models of behavior for managerial decision making

A principal problem in systems studies concerns the development of models that will be accepted and used by decision makers in organizations. Regression models derived from managers' past behavior offer promise in overcoming this problem for many repetitive types of decisions. Employing a simulated production planning environment, this paper discusses both the potential usefulness and limitations of such models for understanding and improving decision making in practical applications.     

Planning for a university,using interactive forecasting

The benefits of programme review, forward planning and control have been demonstrated at the university-wide level. Within a faculty or department, there is also a clear need for developing and using planning methods which are rationally based and forward looking if appropriate responses to changing social and academic trends are to be made. This paper delineates a number of planning and control variables encountered at the faculty or departmental level, describes the development and use of a computer-based interactive forecasting model, and discusses the advantages and limitations of such models in planning a faculty's progress toward its goals.     

Manpower in corporate planning

In this article, the author seeks to show the importance of giving thorough consideration to manpower in all planning activities, whether long or short term. He also emphasizes that manpower planning lies at the heart of all rational personnel activities, if they are to contribute as they should to the objectives of the organization. He outlines the elements of manpower planning, the main methods of forecasting demand and supply, both within and outside the organization and sets out the main elements of the manpower plan.     

EFFECTS OF LEARNING ON RESOURCE ALLOCATION DECISIONS

Learning curves have important implications for managerial planning and control. This paper considers the effect of learning on managerial planning models for productmix problems that can be handled by a linear-programming formulation. An approach to incorporate learning effects in the planning model is proposed in this paper. The feasibility and superiority of the proposed approach over the traditional approach are discussed through the use of a linear-programming problem.     

Necessary and Sufficient Conditions of Unacceptable Solutions in LP Discriminant Analysis*

Characterization of unacceptable solutions for linear programming (LP) discriminant models have been discussed in the literature and the results presented so far are not satisfactory. This paper establishes necessary and sufficient conditions of unacceptable solutions for a number of LP models, addresses the practical implications of these conditions, and discusses the relationship between unacceptable solutions and multiple solutions.     

Some social implications of personnel planning

It would appear that most discussions on manpower or personnel planning are concerned with highlighting the dichotomy between organizational needs and personal needs. The assumption that these two separate need areas can be successfully harmonized through personnel planning is implicit. In this paper the intention is to discuss this relationship in terms of the consequences for employees of attempts to achieve the aims of organizational manpower plans through the establishment of personnel control mechanisms.     

Engineering manpower planning in an airline

Next to the crew on the flight deck of an aircraft, the engineers and technicians form the core of the manpower requirement of an airline. The aviation industry is a specialised one. There are mandatory requirements regarding the airworthiness of an aircraft and certification of engineers and technicians working on or inspecting an aircraft. The requirements of Engineers and Technicians cannot be directly met from the products available from Engineering Colleges and Technical Institutes. Furthermore, 3–4 years of experience in aviation industry is a prerequisite laid down by Civil Aviation Departments for obtaining their licence or approval to work as Engineers and Inspectors in Inspection Organisations. Hence planning of Engineering manpower requirements well in advance is a must for an Airline. The objective of this paper is to discuss the long term planning for engineering manpower resource, in an airline.     

中小呼叫中心月度排班优化模型与算法

国内中小呼叫中心制定坐席人员月度排班表时,通常考虑劳动法规合同约束和体现企业自身用工管理诉求。构建坐席人员月度排班优化问题的二次整数规划模型。鉴于问题模型难解性,依据调研企业需求和模型逻辑结构分析,把问题分解成三个子问题。通过构建整数规划模型和提出启发式算法来求出子问题解,从而生成排班问题优化解。问题实例计算表明,模型算法能够有效控制人力成本和兼顾员工同班次管理目标。与周排班方法比较,该方法能够充分体现月度排班人力灵活性来实现人力优化配置。     

Estimation from Zero-Failure Data

When performing quantitative (or probabilistic) risk assessments, it is often the case that data for many of the potential events in question are sparse or nonexistent. Some of these events may be well-represented by the binomial probability distribution. In this paper, a model for predicting the binomial failure probability, P , from data that include no failures is examined. A review of the literature indicates that the use of this model is currently limited to risk analysis of energetic initiation in the explosives testing field. The basis for the model is discussed, and the behavior of the model relative to other models developed for the same purpose is investigated. It is found that the qualitative behavior of the model is very similar to that of the other models, and for larger values of n (the number of trials), the predicted P values varied by a factor of about eight among the five models examined. Analysis revealed that the estimator is nearly identical to the median of a Bayesian posterior distribution, derived using a uniform prior. An explanation of the application of the estimator in explosives testing is provided, and comments are offered regarding the use of the estimator versus other possible techniques.