You are the operations manager of a smelting plant that runs seven days per week, 24 hours per day, 365 days per year. Due to the nature of the operation, it cannot shutdown – ever – or the furnace will crack and the cost of repair or lost time to reheat the furnace is uneconomical. The refining process, which takes molten metal from the furnace, is the cash cow of the organization - it NEEDS the furnace and its output to make money!

You must devise a schedule for your manpower. Each shift needs 7 people per shift to man the furnace and its associated refining operation – 2 crane men, 1 furnace operator, 2 refining process operators, and 2 furnace tenders. The workweek goes from Sunday @ 12:00 am to Saturday @ 11:59 pm and there are federal labor rules and labor contract rules you must adhere to:

1. Any employee who works over 8 hours in a day receives overtime;
2. Any employee who works over 40 hours in a week receives overtime;
3. Employees will rotate schedules – there are no steady shifts – employees will move through all shifts by workweek – each week the entire crew will change shifts.
4. Assigned shifts can cross over workweeks - the crew can continue on a shift across two workweeks (say they work the same shift on both Saturday and Sunday - they will get paid in two different weeks even though their shift remains the same).
5. You are limited to 28 employees – 4 complete crews – to cover 21 shifts (7 days X 3 shifts per day) but you can go to 12 hour shifts OR justify adding one additional employee to help keep overtime to a minimum (max of 29 employees).

Your assignment is this:

MAKE A CREW SCHEDULE THAT 

1.) HAS EVERYONE WORKING, 

2.) MINIMIZES OVERTIME OR HOLDS OVERTIME TO ZERO, 

3.) COVERS EVERY SHIFT – THERE CAN BE NO DOWN SHIFTS, AND, 

4.) ROTATES OR REPEATS SO THAT THE CREWS KNOW WHICH SHIFT THEY ARE ON EVERY WEEK.

NOW: There are many, many schedules out there to start you off – in fact, there are some famous ones