LABOR ASSIGNMENT AS A DYNAMIC CONTROL PROBLEM

A problem of labor assignment in a labor and machine limited production system is formulated as a dynamic control problem. The Pontryagin maximum principle is employed to obtain properties of the optimal unconstrained labor assignment procedure. The result indicates a boundary type of control, independent of time. The specifications defining the set of admissible controls leads directly to the constrained optimal solution. Some examples are given to illustrate the nature of the fixed priority policies which depend upon the system state (queue lengths) only indirectly through a restriction on admissible policies. A number of limiting assumptions and omissions which facilitated analytical resolution of the problem are discussed to emphasize the importance of simulation as a research medium for the study of systems control problems. (Author)