Resolution of multi-skilled workers assignment problem using simulation optimization: A case study

This paper addresses a worker assignment problem where multi-skilled workers perform a set of tasks independently and without walking and work sharing between workstations. A real case study is considered in this work. This problem is solved as a non-identical parallel machines scheduling problem with stochastic processing time where each machine represent one worker. A simulation optimization (SO) approach, using a robust tabu search (TS) algorithm that is coupled with a simulation model, is proposed to minimize the maximum completion time (makespan). The results is compared with this obtained by the using assignment method in the SETA Company.