Optimal Scheduling of a Flexible-Duration Rest Period for a Work Group

Stephen E. Bechtold and Gary M. Thompson
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Stephen E. Bechtold: Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida
Gary M. Thompson: University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah

Operations Research, 1993, vol. 41, issue 6, 1046-1054

Abstract: All previous modeling research involving optimization of performance associated with work-rest cycles has focused upon individual employees working independently. We extend this earlier research by considering the choices of placement for and duration of a single rest period that must be taken simultaneously by all employees in a work group. Assuming linear work-rate decay and recovery functions for individual employees within the group, we show that an appropriate model can be formulated as a mixed-binary, cubic programming problem. We develop an efficient optimal solution procedure with a computational time that appears to be a linear function of the number of employees considered. We report on a preliminary simulation experiment that evaluates the productivity loss that occurs when the rest break policy is determined based on the work characteristics of a randomly selected subset of employees in the work group, and provides an initial exploration of the nature of optimal policy variables. Finally, we offer suggestions for future research.

Keywords: labor: finding the optimal timing and length of a common rest break; programming; nonlinear algorithms an efficient algorithm for a mixed-binary cubic problem; simulation; applications: measuring employee work-group performance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1993
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