Scheduling IT Staff at a Bank: A Mathematical Programming Approach

Creating a staff schedule is a challenging and time consuming task. This requires generating a schedule which respects the constraints of the staff and fulfils the organization objectives. Various techniques are used to achieve this such as use of Tabu search algorithms, genetic algorithms linear programming, or mixed integer programming. This paper has proposed a solution for scheduling of IT staff in a bank by using a multiobjective programming method. The solution was implemented using Lingo software and the results were compared with the existing manual method in use. Improvements noted were in reduction in overtime for both the operator and supervisor shift and also the new method allows for the staff to choose the preferred day off. Future work includes implementing the solution in different departments in the live environment in the bank and also adapting the solution to provide flexibility in case of disruptions.