Labour flexibility and staffing levels in a dual-resource constrained job shop

Labour flexibility and staffing levels in a dual-resource constrained job shop

0.00 Avg rating0 Votes
Article ID: iaor1994531
Country: United Kingdom
Volume: 31
Issue: 10
Start Page Number: 2487
End Page Number: 2506
Publication Date: Oct 1993
Journal: International Journal of Production Research
Authors: , ,
Abstract:

In many manufacturing organizations, increasing process flexibility is becoming more important while the reliance on product cost to measure manufacturing performance is being lessened. As a result, companies are placing more emphasis on developing a cross-trained workforce in an effort to improve the flexibility of their operations. Having a cross-trained workforce allows managers to move workers around to adjust to temporary overloads in the shop. Another approach to increasing process flexibility is through the addition of labour to create a capacity buffer. Adding more labour improves flexibility since it reduces the average utilization in the shop thereby reducing the possibility of any overload occurring in the first place. This paper compares the benefits realized by the development of a multi-skilled workforce with the benefits realized by additional workforce staffing. Both strategies exhibit improvement in the simulation of a hypothetical dual resource constrained hybrid job-shop. Results suggest that developing a multi-skilled workforce is a more conservative approach to manufacturing improvement than simply increasing levels of staffing. However, the use of additional labour results in a much more pronounced improvement than cross-training. A combination of the two strategies appears to be the best choice.

Reviews

Required fields are marked *. Your email address will not be published.