Downsizing production/operations with multi‐objective programming

One strategy that has been used extensively to cut operation costs is downsizing, a planned reduction in a firm’s work force. Downsizing must be based on a thorough analysis of the firm’s prioritized opportunities and their limited economic resources to achieve them. Some operations research techniques have appeared in the literature as practical aids in downsizing methodology. The purpose and significance of the research in this paper is to: provide the first demonstration of how a prioritized multi‐objective programming‐oriented methodology (i.e. goal programming) can be used for planning the downsizing of production/operations resources; and demonstrate a new methodological approach that can be used to determine previously hidden goals in a manufacturing linear programming model of the downsizing problem. Based on a problem reported in the literature, this paper will illustrate how an optimal allocation of production resources can be achieved while providing useful information in which to ensure other prioritized goals and their economic tradeoffs are considered in the downsizing analysis.