• Journal of the Korean Operations Research and Management Science Society
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• v.40 no.4
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• pp.145-156
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• 2015

Incorporation of individual learning and forgetting behaviors within worker-task assignment models produces a mixed integer nonlinear program (MINLP) problem, which is difficult to solve as a NP hard due to its nonlinearity in the objective function. Previous studies commonly assume homogeneity among workers in workforce scheduling that takes account of learning and forgetting characteristics. This paper expands previous researches by considering heterogeneous individual learning/forgetting, and investigates the impact of worker heterogeneity in initial expertise, steady-state productivity, learning and forgetting on system performance to assist manager's decision-making in worker-task assignments without tackling complex MINLP models. In order to understand the performance implications of workforce heterogeneity, this paper examines analytically how heterogeneity in each of the four parameters of the exponential learning and forgetting (L/F) model affects system performance in three cases : consecutive assignments with no break, n breaks of s-length each, and total b break-periods occurred over T periods. The study presents the direction of change in worker performance under different assignment schedules as the variance in initial expertise, steady-state productivity, learning or forgetting increases. Thus, it implies whether having more heterogenous workforce in terms of each of four parameters in the L/F model is desired or not in different schedules from the perspective of system productivity measurement.

• Journal of Korean Society of Industrial and Systems Engineering
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.68-77
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• 2004

This paper considers the workforce assignment problem to minimize both the deviations of workloads assigned to workers and to maximize the total preference between each worker and each machine. Because of the high expense of technology education and the difficulties of firing employees, there is no part time workers in semiconductor industry. Therefore, multi-skilled workers are trained for performing various operations in several machines. The bicriteria workforce assignment problem in this paper is not easy to obtain the optimal solution considering the aisle structure and it is belong to NP-class. The proposed heuristic algorithms are developed based on the combination of spacefilling curve technique, simulated annealing technique and graph theory focusing on the multiple-row machine layout. Examples are presented for the proposed algorithms how to find a good solution.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.15 no.9
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• pp.555-561
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• 2015

The construction industry is a labor-oriented and quality, cost, and schedule performance is effected by technicians. However, the construction industry have faced a labor shortage problem. Therefore, technician graying and no new workers inflow cause labor shortage and decline of worker's skill level. The utilization of foreign technicians instead of domestic technicians has been increased in the construction industry. This paper performed questionnaire survey for 43 managers on 14 project fields to determine the current status and problems of construction technicians and to propose a improvement plan. As a result, most foreign technicians are carpenters and iron workers, but the skill levels are generally lower than domestics. The major problems for foreign technicians are communication and non-skilled. Then, labor productivity and accident rates of foreign technicians are higher than domestics. This paper proposes that skill training programs, language lessons, and multi-cultural programs are effective to improve foreign workers' problems.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.127-153
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• 2009

There is a growing concern about potential harmful effect of second-hand or environmental tobacco smoking. As a result, smoking bans in workplace become more prevalent worldwide. In Korea, workplace smoking ban policy become more restrictive in 2003 when National health enhancing law was amended. The new law requires all office buildings larger than 3,000 square meters (multi-purpose buildings larger than 2,000 square meters) should be smoke free. Therefore, a lot of indoor office became non smoking area. Previous studies in other counties often found contradicting answers for the effects of workplace smoking ban on smoking behavior. In addition, there was no study in Korea yet that examines the causal impacts of smoking ban on smoking behavior. The situation in Korea might be different from other countries. Using 2001 and 2005 Korea National Health and Nutrition surveys which are representative for population in Korea we try to examine the impacts of law change on current smoker and cigarettes smoked per day. The amended law impacted the whole country at the same time and there was a declining trend in smoking rate even before the legislation update. So, the challenge here is to tease out the true impact only. We compare indoor working occupations which are constrained by the law change with outdoor working occupations which are less impacted. Since the data has been collected before (2001) and after (2005) the law change for treated (indoor working occupations) and control (outdoor working occupations) groups we will use difference in difference method. We restrict our sample to working age (between 20 and 65) since these are the relevant population by the workplace smoking ban policy. We also restrict the sample to indoor occupations (executive or administrative and administrative support) and outdoor occupations (sales and low skilled worker) after dropping unemployed and someone working for military since it is not clear whether these occupations are treated group or control group. This classification was supported when we examined the answers for workplace smoking ban policy existing only in 2005 survey. Sixty eight percent of indoor occupations reported having an office smoking ban policy compared to forty percent of outdoor occupation answering workplace smoking ban policy. The estimated impacts on current smoker are 4.1 percentage point decline and cigarettes per day show statistically significant decline of 2.5 cigarettes per day. Taking into account consumption of average sixteen cigarettes per day among smokers it is sixteen percent decline in smoking rate which is substantial. We tested robustness using the same sample across two surveys and also using tobit model. Our results are robust against both concerns. It is possible that our measure of treated and control group have measurement error which will lead to attenuation bias. However, we are finding statistically significant impacts which might be a lower bound of the true estimates. The magnitude of our finding is not much different from previous finding of significant impacts. For cigarettes per day previous estimates varied from 1.37 to 3.9 and for current smoker it showed between 1%p and 7.8%p.