OPTIMAL MANPOWER PLANNING DECISION WITH SINGLE EMPLOYEE TYPE CONSIDERING MINIMAL EMPLOYMENT PERIOD CONSTRAINT

In this paper, we investigate a manpower planning problem with single employee type over a long planning horizon. The dynamic demand for manpower must be fulfilled by allocating enough number of employees and each employee has a minimal employment period. A cost objective is concerned where the costs for every employee include salary, recruitment and dismissal costs, in particular, setup cost when recruitment activity occurs in one period. In this paper we first formulate the problem as a dynamic programming model. Then we derive properties of the problem and propose an algorithm to minimize the total manpower-related cost over the entire planning horizon. Next we discuss the influence on the optimal states of changing some parameters and provide the sensitivity analysis of the optimal states concerning the future demands. Finally, we report computational results to illustrate the correctness of the approach and to analyze the influence on the optimal states of changing parameters or changing future demands.