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 the foreseeable delivery of multiple projects with restrictions 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 the primary 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. Therefore, the main question is how to make the most efficient assignment plan in multi-project, multi-task environment if several staff members can carry out different tasks at the different level of performance. This paper proposes an integration of all input-output criteria, regardless of their type through a DEA-based mixed-integer programming model. It evaluates 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 the decision model. The results show that the fulfilling of maximum efficiency criteria of all staff members in implementing the required tasks provides balanced efficiency in the implementation of all ongoing projects, which makes this model a useful tool for decision makers.

Evaluating the Employment Efficiency of IT Candidates Using Data Envelopment Analysis

“…During the process of reconciling conflicting opinions, it is highly likely that certain performance measures may be overlooked. Consequently, the assessment can be incomplete with respect to all selected performance measures [8].…”

“…In a study conducted by Martinovic and Savic [8], Conjoint analysis was primarily used to determine the preferences of employees in the human resources sector regarding the skills and qualities that a candidate should possess to be selected for a specific job position. Subsequently, the study employed Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to select the most efficient candidate from the pool of observed candidates who applied for a particular position, and to assess what improvements are needed for inefficient candidates to become efficient.…”

“…The assessment of efficiency is based on input and output values and is inherently relative, as it depends on the number of units in the observed set, data structure, and range of input and output values. Each unit employs the same types of inputs and transforms them into the same types of outputs [8].…”

A model to reduce the risk of project selection utilizing data envelopment analysis

“…They calculated the variations of cross-efficiencies, and to incorporate of cross-efficiencies into the mean-variance formulation of portfolio selection. Martinovic and savic (2019) proposed a mixed-integer linear programming model to make the most efficient assignment plan in a multi-project environment. To choose a project, Toloo et al (2018) has been introduced a model according to subjective opinions and intuitive senses of decision and intuitive senses of decision-makers.…”