A Game-Theory Method to Design Job Rotation Schedules to Prevent Musculoskeletal Disorders Based on Workers’ Preferences and Competencies

Job rotation is an organizational strategy based on the systematic exchange of workers between jobs in a planned manner according to specific criteria. This study presents the GS-Rot method, a method based on Game Theory, in order to design job rotation schedules by considering not only workers’ job preferences, but also the competencies required for different jobs. With this approach, we promote workers’ active participation in the design of the rotation plan. It also let us deal with restrictions in assigning workers to job positions according to their disabilities (temporal or permanent). The GS-Rot method has been implemented online and applied to a case in a work environment characterized by the presence of a high repetition of movements, which is a significant risk factor associated with work-related musculoskeletal disorders (WMSDs). A total of 17 workstations and 17 workers were involved in the rotation, four of them with physical/psychological limitations. Feasible job rotation schedules were obtained in a short time (average time 27.4 milliseconds). The results indicate that in the rotations driven by preference priorities, almost all the workers (94.11%) were assigned to one of their top five preferences. Likewise, 48.52% of job positions were assigned to workers in their top five of their competence lists. When jobs were assigned according to competence, 58.82% of workers got an assignment among their top five competence lists. Furthermore, 55.87% of the workers achieved jobs in their top five preferences. In both rotation scenarios, the workers varied performed jobs, and fatigue accumulation was balanced among them. The GS-Rot method achieved feasible and uniform solutions regarding the workers’ exposure to job repetitiveness.

[1]  Byung Yong Jeong,et al.  Preferred 11 different job rotation types in automotive company and their effects on productivity, quality and musculoskeletal disorders: comparison between subjective and actual scores by workers’ age , 2016, Ergonomics.

[2]  Shib Sankar Sana,et al.  Application of genetic algorithm to job scheduling under ergonomic constraints in manufacturing industry , 2019, J. Ambient Intell. Humaniz. Comput..

[3]  Giovanni Mummolo,et al.  Ergonomic improvement through job rotations in repetitive manual tasks in case of limited specialization and differentiated ergonomic requirements , 2016 .

[4]  Armin Scholl,et al.  Reducing ergonomic risks by job rotation scheduling , 2012, OR Spectrum.

[5]  Bellal Ahmed Bhuiyan.  An Overview of Game Theory and Some Applications , 2018, Philosophy and Progress.

[6]  Bruce Bueno de Mesquita,et al.  An Introduction to Game Theory , 2014 .

[7]  Krzysztof R. Apt,et al.  Cooperative Games , 2020, A Course in Game Theory.

[8]  L. Shapley.  The theory of stable allocations and the practice of market design . The Nobel Prize in Economics 2012 for Alvin E . Roth , 2016 .

[9]  S. Asensio-Cuesta,et al.  A genetic algorithm for the design of job rotation schedules considering ergonomic and competence criteria , 2012 .

[10]  Sabina Asensio Cuesta,et al.  LA ROTACIÓN DE PUESTOS DE TRABAJO COMO MEDIO PARA LA INTEGRACIÓN DE TRABAJADORES CON DISCAPACIDAD , 2011 .

[11]  Peter Butkovic,et al.  On the job rotation problem , 2007, Discret. Optim..

[12]  Kurtuluş Kaymaz,et al.  The Effects of Job Rotation Practices on Motivation: A Research on Managers in the Automotive Organizations , 2010 .

[13]  Lucia Botti,et al.  Design of job rotation schedules managing the exposure to age-related risk factors , 2017 .

[14]  M S Redfern,et al.  Designing safe job rotation schedules using optimization and heuristic search , 2000, Ergonomics.

[15]  Jack T Dennerlein,et al.  Job rotation designed to prevent musculoskeletal disorders and control risk in manufacturing industries: A systematic review. , 2017, Applied ergonomics.

[16]  A. Roth,et al.  Two-sided matching , 1990 .

[17]  L. S. Shapley,et al.  College Admissions and the Stability of Marriage , 2013, Am. Math. Mon..

[18]  Robin Burgess-Limerick,et al.  Participatory ergonomics: Evidence and implementation lessons. , 2018, Applied ergonomics.

[19]  Paolo Renna,et al.  Capacity sharing in a network of enterprises using the Gale–Shapley model , 2013 .

[20]  Jordi Massó Carreras.  The Theory of stable allocations and the practice of market design. The Nobel Prize in Economics 2012 for Alvin E. Roth and Lloyd S. Shapley , 2016 .

[21]  Daniela Colombini,et al.  Risk Assessment and Management of Repetitive Movements and Exertions of Upper Limbs , 2002 .

[22]  Jose Antonio Diego-Mas,et al.  A method to design job rotation schedules to prevent work-related musculoskeletal disorders in repetitive work , 2012 .

[23]  Jeonghan Ko,et al.  A model for developing job rotation schedules that eliminate sequential high workloads and minimize between-worker variability in cumulative daily workloads: Application to automotive assembly lines. , 2016, Applied ergonomics.

[24]  Myung Hwan Yun,et al.  Development of a job rotation scheduling algorithm for minimizing accumulated work load per body parts. , 2015, Work.

[25]  Paolo Renna,et al.  Decision-making method of reconfigurable manufacturing systems’ reconfiguration by a Gale-Shapley model , 2017 .

[26]  Juan A. Aledo,et al.  Predecessors and Gardens of Eden in sequential dynamical systems over directed graphs , 2018 .

[27]  François Cail,et al.  Proposal of parameters to implement a workstation rotation system to protect against MSDs , 2008 .

[28]  S H Rodgers,et al.  A functional job analysis technique. , 1992, Occupational medicine.