Optimal workforce and machine scheduling to maximize profit and worker satisfaction

Efficient planning and scheduling is essential for improving workers' morale and factory's profit. In the present study, attempts are made to address a multi-resource scheduling problem encountered in a major clothing industry setting. Specifically, the problem deals with assigning jobs to workers and machines in order to maximise the total profit of factory and the satisfaction of workers. Constraints related to workers' job type preferences, worker satisfaction, learning effect, balanced allocation of jobs and machine sharing are taken into consideration. The particular problem described in this paper is highly relevant to the clothing industry in sharing economy and has not been previously addressed in the literature. This study provides a comprehensive mathematical programming model and applies ε-constraint method and NAGA-II approach to effectively solve this problem.