Airlines initiated an opérations research study to improve the utilization of personnel at the airline's reservations offices and airports by matching work schedules to customer needs more closely. The number of employees needed at each location to provide the; required level of service vaties greatly during the 24-hour day and might fluctuate considerably from one half-hour to the next, ‘Trying to design the work schedules for all the empl-oyees at a given location to meet these service requirements most efficiently isa nightmare of combinatorial considerations. Once an employee arrives, ‘he or she will be there continuously for the entire shift (216 10'hours, depending’on the employee), except for either a meal break or short rest breaks every two hours..Given.the minimum number of employees ‘needed on duty for eaok half-hour interval over @ 24-hour day (ibis minimura changes from day to day over a seven-day week), how many employees of each shif length should begin work at what start time over each 24-hour day of 2 sevendiey week? Fortunately, linear programming thrives on sugh, combinatorial nightmares. The linear programming model for some of the locations scheduled involves ‘over 20,000 decisions! ‘This application of linear programming was credited with saving United Airlines more than $6 million answally in just direct salkry and benefit costs, Other benefits included improved customer service and ‘educed workloads for support staff. Souree: T. J, Holloran and J. E, Bryne, “United Aiifines Station-Manpower Planning System.” Interface’, 16(1}¢ 39-50, Jan.-Feb, 1986. (A link to this article is provided inthe CD.) - TABLE 3.49 Data for the Uniion Airways personnel schedilling problem . ‘Time Periods Covered ‘shift Minimum Number of Time Pertod T2324 ‘Agents Needed B00 aset 6:00am | ® aM to1000aw | vv 79 ‘ave. to néon vo 6 Noon t 2:00 ra. “ow ov 7 2200 ra 10 4:00 ri vow 64 4:00 na to 6:00 5. vow 3 6:00 rt t0 8:00 nx, vow 82 £200 ra. to 10:00 rae ¥ “a 10:90 toe. to michight vow 3 Midnight to 6200 ae ae 1s Daily cost peragent [$170 $160 8178 $180” SBE | ~ Checkmarks in the main Body of Table 3.19 show the hours covered by the respective shifts. Betause some shifts areas desirable than others, te wages specified inthe conteat differ by shift For each shify the dilly | conspensation (including benefits) for each agent is shown in the bottom row. The problem is to determine: how many agents should be assigned to the respective shifts each day io minimize the rofal personae! cost for < ‘Agents, based on this bottom row, while mesting (or surpassing) the service requiremerty given in thé’, rightmost column,