A multiple-shift workforce scheduling model under annualized hours

Many manufacturing and service organizations in Europe have used annualized hours, also known as flexiyear, to successfully tackle seasonal demand. Under annualized hours, the employer has a certain number of labor hours available in a year and the employer can allocate the hours over the year according to manpower need. A problem in planning for annualized hours is the scheduling of the workforce over the year. We present an algorithm to generate an annual schedule for a scenario in which a facility operates one or more shifts and manpower need may vary from week to week.