An evaluation of a full-/part-time tour scheduling methodology

With the increasing emphasis on improving service sector staff scheduling, many organisations have turned to employing part-time staff in greater numbers. Operating managers need to schedule this staff in an efficient manner to cover the highly variable demand that is commonly present. This study demonstrates a number of important factors that influence how well staff schedules can be matched against variable demand. Four heuristic staff scheduling procedures are examined that provide optimal, or near optimal, staff schedules under different operating conditions. It is shown that variability in demand controls the number of excess staff hours scheduled, and that the smaller the number of daily shift hours and/or the number of days worked per week, the lower will be the level of excess staff hours scheduled.