Staff Assignment to Multiple Projects Based on DEA Efficiency

Abstract

An adequate staff assignment plan is recognized as one of the most important factor for fulfilling foreseable delivery of multiple projects with restriction on available budget, time and quality. This problem is very complex and becomes more complicated as the number of projects, tasks and staff members increases. Decision makers need to find a single unique performance measure as main criterion for making a balanced and efficient staff assignment plan. The efficiency of an assignment plan depends on different input and output criteria related to staff member performances which can be economic, qualitative or quantitative by nature. This paper proposes integration of all the aforementioned criteria, regardless of their type through a DEA-based mixed-integer programming model. It evaluates of the efficiency of staff members as a unique criterion, based on their past performances, together with making an assignment plan. Practical examples with different restrictions empirically demonstrate the possibilities of decision model. The results show that the maximum efficiency of staff members in implementing the required tasks provides balanced efficiency in the implementation of all on-going projects, which makes this model a useful tool for decision makers.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.ee.30.2.20272