A Manpower Recovery Decision Support System with Time Window and Skill Restrictions

Manpower planning and scheduling, which involves both skill and time window restrictions, are important in service industry. However, when unanticipated events occur on the actual day of operation, the planned schedule becomes infeasible and as a result, any planned schedule may not be implemented. Thus, disruption recovery of planned resources is essential. It is critical to get back on track in a timely manner while effectively using the available resources. The advancement in decision support system (DSS) along with the improving computer processing speed provides boundless opportunity for advancements in the area of disruption management. This paper presents a manpower recovery decision support system (MRDSS) for solving manpower recovery problems with time window and skill restrictions. The solution methodology developed in this study solves rescheduling problem with the intervention of rule based search technique to represent all the constraints. A rescheduling engine is developed to repair the disrupted schedule. By using data provided by an in-flight catering service provider in Malaysia, extensive computational tests are performed to evaluate the MRDSS. Multiple solutions approach along with extra essential information gives decision makers a better position to make a good decision in recovering the manpower during disruption.