Multi-level heterogeneous worker flexibility in a Dual Resource Constrained (DRC) job-shop

The majority of research on labour flexibility in a DRC job-shop has focuse d on the situation where all workers are equally trained. In practice, it i s likely that workers would not be trained equally and would possess differ ent skills. In this paper, the situation where workers receive different le vels of training across the various departments as well as possessing diffe rent levels of proficiency at each task is studied. Research results sugges t that, even at the same level of shop flexibility, the mixture of cross tr aining can have a significant impact on shop performance. Indeed, results s uggest that it is better to have a mix of workers with no flexibility and s ome workers with very high flexibility rather than all workers with equal f lexibility.