Gateway International Airport (GIA) has experienced substantial growth in both commercial and general aviation operations during the past several years. (An operation is a landing or takeoff.) Because of the initiation of new commercial service at the airport, which is scheduled for several months in the future, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has concluded that the increased operations and associated change in the hourly distribution of takeoffs and landings will require an entirely new work schedule for the current air traffic control (ATC) staff. The FAA feels that GIA might need to hire additional ATC personnel, because the present staff of five probably will not be enough to handle the expected demand. After examining the various service plans that each commercial airline submitted for the next 6-month period, the FAA developed an average hourly demand forecast of total operations (Figure 11.14) and a weekly forecast of variation from the average daily demand (Figure 11.15). An assistant to the manager for operations has been delegated the task of developing workforce requirements and schedules for the ATC staff to maintain an adequate level of operational safety with a minimum of excess ATC “capacity.”

The various constraints are:
1. Each controller will work a continuous, 8-hour shift (ignoring any lunch break), which always will begin at the start of an hour at any time during the day (i.e., any and all shifts begin at X:00), and the controller must have at least 16 hours off before resuming duty.

2. Each controller will work exactly 5 days per week.

3. Each controller is entitled to 2 consecutive days off, with any consecutive pair of days being eligible.

4. FAA guidelines will govern GIA’s workforce requirements so that the ratio of total operations to the number of available controllers in any hourly period cannot exceed 16

Questions

1. Assume that you are the assistant to the manager for operations at the FAA. Use the techniques of workshift scheduling to analyze the total workforce requirements and days-off schedule. For the primary analysis, assume that:

a. Operator requirements will be based on a shift profile of demand (i.e., 8 hours).

b. There will be exactly three separate shifts each day, with no overlapping of shifts

c. The distribution of hourly demand in Figure 11.14 is constant for each day of the week, but the levels of hourly demand vary during the week as shown in Figure 11.15.

  

328 Part Three Managing Service Operations FIGURE 11.15 +20 Daily Demand Variation from Average +12% +10 +8% +4% +4% Sun. Mon. Tues. Wed. Thurs. Fri. Sat. -10 -20 -20% Percentage variation from average daily operations