A dynamic programming approach to determine optimal manpower recruitment policies

The manpower planning models available in the literature have dealt with how changes take place in a manpower planning system, under various operating and policy constraints. However, none of these models has identified the manpower system costs. In this paper various manpower system costs have been identified. Further, a manpower planning model has been developed with the objective of minimizing the manpower system costs. The model has been found to be analogous to the Wagner-Whitin model in production/inventory management. A numerical example has been given to illustrate the model.