A SIMULATION AND OPTIMIZATION APPROACHES FOR WORKLOAD ANALYSIS AND MANPOWER PLANNING

Abstract

In today's world, occupational stress is identified as a major health issue within most organizations. The reason the spotlight has been focused on occupational stress in recent years is that it can have a negative impact on employee's health and life. For this reason, this thesis focuses on the effects of workload on employees in the workplace, as well as the process of work distribution among employees. This thesis also studies the impact of major organizational restructure where the number of employees dropped by 30% and examines the impact of such a drop in the number of employees on the workload distribution. A survey is designed for the purpose of this thesis to gain knowledge on the employees' perspective on their own workload and how it can affect their lives. The survey also covers a section designed for supervisors where they can provide input on the process of work distribution among employees. Moreover, a simulation model is created to model the process of project lifecycle within the organization, to understand the behavior of the system, and gain insights on the utilization of manpower resources. Finally, a mathematical model is designed to optimize the number of employees and maximize profits by optimizing the current available manpower resources. The results of the simulation and the survey showed that the workload is not evenly distributed among the employees, causing delays in the project delivery.