A HEURISTIC JOB SCHEDULING DECISION-SUPPORT SYSTEM - A CASE-STUDY

The daily activity of establishing a job assignment schedule for each individual employee in a manufacturing setting can be quite a complex management task. Work rules, special work load requirements and absent eeism all act to compound the scheduling activity. Many organizations have tried to solve their scheduling problems by developing software s ystems to handle their daily scheduling decision making. The purpose o f this paper is to describe the development of a unique heuristic-base d scheduling software system. The scheduling system is presented in th e context of a real world case study for a major US manufacturer who s ponsored the scheduling system's development.