A multiple-shift workforce scheduling model under annualized hours

Many manufacturing and service organizations in Europe have used annualized hours, also known as flexiyear, to successfully tackle seasonal demand. Un der annualized hours, the employer has a certain number of labor hours avai lable in a year and the employer can allocate the hours over the year accor ding to manpower need. A problem in planning for annualized hours is the sc heduling of the workforce over the year. We present an algorithm to generat e an annual schedule for a scenario in which a facility operates one or mor e shifts and manpower need may vary from week to week. (C) 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.