Improving workforce deployment in fruit buying stations: A fuzzy decision-making framework

Abstract

The problem of scheduling workers is a real problem in workplaces where the time of execution of work operations and tasks does not play a decisive role. In the proposed model, it was taken into account that the considered criteria do not have equal relative importance. The Fuzzy Analytical Hierarchy Process method was used to determine the relative importance of the criteria. In addition, the Fuzzy Linear Programming method was used to optimize the scheduling of workers at workplaces. The decision maker used pre-defined linguistic expressions modelled by triangular fuzzy numbers to express his assessments, both when assessing the relative importance of the criteria, and when assessing the value of each workplace according to each criterion. The model developed in this paper was tested on an example from practice, that is, on a company dealing with the purchase and processing of fruit.