Robust Competence Allocation for Multi-project Scheduling

Abstract

To ensure proper functioning of an organization (e.g. production system) in settings in which there exists a risk of disruptions caused by unexpected employee absenteeism and/or a changing demand for employees with specific qualifications, one must move away from traditional approaches oriented towards the determination of procedures for generating workable baseline schedules that minimize the project makespan in a deterministic environment. The planner must take into account time uncertainties caused by an unexpected deviation of activity durations and resource availability uncertainties related to the fact that execution of tasks in a project depends on the availability of resources. The aim of this study was to develop a method “determining” a competence structure of employees, allowing for realizing proactive planning robust to unexpected staff absenteeism. To this end, we proposed a procedure for designing a competence framework that returns competence structures robust to disruptions caused by employee absenteeism. The procedure, derived from a declarative model, can be used to determine structures that allow to substitute redundant competences, thus ensuring robustness of the generated schedules to the types of absenteeism that are known a priori. The possibilities of practical application of the presented approach are illustrated with examples.