Article ID: | iaor1995125 |
Country: | United States |
Volume: | 41 |
Issue: | 6 |
Start Page Number: | 1046 |
End Page Number: | 1054 |
Publication Date: | Nov 1993 |
Journal: | Operations Research |
Authors: | Bechtold Stephen E., Thompson Gary M. |
Keywords: | programming: nonlinear, simulation: applications |
All previous modeling research involving optimization of performance associated with work-rest cycles has focused upon individual employees working independently. The authors extend this earlier research by considering the choices of placement for an duration of a single rest period that must be taken simultaneously by all employees in a work group. Assuming linear work-rate decay and recovery functions for individual employees within the group, they show that an appropriate model can be formulated as a mixed-binary, cubic programming problem. The authors develop an efficient optimal solution procedure with a computational time that appears to be a linear function of the number of employees considered. They report on a preliminary simulation experiment that evaluates the productivity loss that occurs when the rest break policy is determined based on the work characteristics of a randomly selected subset of employees in the work group, and provides an initial exploration of the nature of optimal policy variables. Finally, the authors offer suggestions for future research.