Holonic Workforce Allocation To Reduce The Impact Of Absenteeism And Turnover

Loading...
Thumbnail Image
Date
2011-05
Authors
Lim, Yong Ching
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Universiti Sains Malaysia
Abstract
Holonic Manufacturing System (HMS) adopts Arthur Koestler’s generalisation on living organisms and social organisations into a novel paradigm that suits the manufacturing industry. Autonomy and cooperation are the prime attributes of holons. The holonic concepts have been applied to many areas, and yet, rarely attempted on workforce allocation. Hence, this scientific research is intended to develop a duallevel advisory model called Holonic Workforce Allocation Model (HWM) in order to deal with absenteeism and turnover. The first level, termed as pre-active planning, uses the exponential smoothing technique to forecast the number of operators required on a variety of tasks. The second level is called reactive allocation and is associated with a weighted randomised formulation that can provide cross-training opportunities in parallel with specialisation requirements. With the aid of mock-up data, case study and computer simulation, HWM has been experimented in several scenarios and been compared with some models commonly used in manufacturing. The experimental results show that HWM has the capability to determine the workforce size according to demand and is more effective than the others in minimising task overdue rate, improving average skill level, as well as providing moderate workload balance and cross-training chances. With such outcome, incorporating holonic attributes into workforce allocation is promising, while its application can be extended to other forms of labour-intensive manufacturing such as assembly cells and production flow lines.
Description
Keywords
Holonic Workforce Allocation , deal with absenteeism and turnover
Citation