Computer Implementation of the Two-Factor DP Model for Manpower Planning

Abstract

In this paper, a two-factor dynamic programming (DP) model for manpower planning is presented in linear programming (LP) form. It has been observed that practical problems formulated as usually have too many variables and constraints which make their manual solutions cumbersome. The manpower problem presented in this paper has many constraints and variables but is highly sparse having very few non zero coefficients in its matrix. A computer program known as Program Simplex which takes advantage of this sparseness has been applied to obtain an optimal solution to the manpower planning problem presented. It has also been observed that LP models with few nonzero coefficients can easily be solved by using a computer to obtain an optimal solution.

Keywords: Dynamic programming, manpower, wastage, recruitment