On Searching Optimal Worker Assignment in Multi-stage Production Lines

We are concerned with a worker assignment problem in multi-stage production lines, in which workers may have different skill levels. The model called the restricted-cycle model with multiple periods is under consideration. The objective is to minimize the expected cost of assignments, which is defined based on the expected idle cost and the expected delay cost at all stages. We propose a new branch and bound algorithm for finding an optimal worker assignment, and the proposed algorithm can also be applied when parallel production line environments are under consideration. Based on numerical experiments, we show that our proposed algorithm is more effective than previously proposed algorithms.