Time Constrained Workforce Scheduling as a Multiple Knapsack Problem

One of the largest controllable costs in a service organization is payroll. A service organization needs to use its workers and managers as efficiently as possible while delivering high service levels. This article presents a way to assign work to time-constrained workers as a multiple knapsack problem. Using managers to assign work is not a good use of a manager's time and can lead to less than optimal results when there is a considerable amount of work to be assigned. Assigning work using a mathematically based algorithm can lead to fewer missed due dates, uses workers to better advantage, and relieves management of the mundane task of assigning jobs to workers. Author's experience with the technique at a software service center is reported.