Operations Management: An Integrated Approach, 5th Edition

DEVELOPING A WORKFORCE SCHEDULE

Tibrewala, Phillippe, and Brown developed a technique in 1972 that enables a company to operate seven days a week and give each of its full-time employees two consecutive days off. The purpose is to find the two consecutive days off for each employee, satisfy staffing needs, and minimize excess capacity. For example, a swimming pool or beach needs lifeguards seven days a week. This scheduling technique can develop the schedules to be used so that each lifeguard has two consecutive days off during the week. Since most companies define the starting day and ending day of their pay week, we will use Monday as the first day of the week. Thus an employee cannot be off on Sunday and Monday since those are not two consecutive days during the same pay week. We use Tibrewala, Phillippe, and Brown's technique for developing the schedule by following these steps:

Step 1 Find out the Minimum Number of Employees Needed for Each Day of the Week.

Step 2 Given the Minimum Number of Employees Needed Each Day, Calculate the Number of Employees Needed for Each Pair of Consecutive Days during the Pay Week. For example, a total of nine employees are needed on Monday and ...