Workforce Management and Scheduling Under Flexible Demand

Abstract

We develop a mathematical model for planning and scheduling staff and demand, considering a time window for on-time demand fulfillment, as well as individual staff characteristics, preferences, and availability. We also discuss a version where the staff schedule is fixed. The model can be applied in many service settings, such as warehouses, fulfillment centers, and back-office services. We develop a user-friendly decision-support tool that employs the model and the solution methodology, and we implement it in a healthcare back-office services provider, considering additional operational practices of this company, such as team leader scheduling. We conduct a computational study to develop insights regarding the trade-offs between the on-time demand fulfillment and the quality of the staff schedule, the effect of a change in the demand fulfillment time window, the impact of client behavior (e.g., batch arrivals of demand), and the consequences of considering additional preferences and operational constraints. We also evaluate the robustness of the staff schedule generated by the model under different demand scenarios. Finally, we present a heuristic to set high-quality staff schedules quickly. After the implementation, the company reported a 25% increase in staff productivity.