Patent ID: 8504403

Claim:
A labor resource decision support system comprising: one or more computers; and a computer-readable medium coupled to the one or more computers having instructions stored thereon which, when executed by the one or more computers, cause the one or more computers to perform operations comprising: determining a demand measurement for a first type of labor resource based on input describing forecasted demand for the first type of labor resource within the organization; determining a supply measurement for the first type of labor resource based on input describing forecasted supply for the first type of labor resource within the organization and the labor resource data; calculating a gap measurement based on the determined demand measurement and the determined supply measurement, the calculated gap measurement reflecting ability of the organization to meet forecasted demand for the first type of labor resource within the organization based on forecasted supply for the first type of labor resource within the organization; associating a cost measure with one or more of the first type of labor resources within the organization; outputting the calculated gap measurement; receiving user input defining multiple, different modeling scenarios related to addressing the calculated gap measurement, the user input being received after output of the calculated gap measurement and in response to solicitation of user input to define resource data and one or more constraints for each of the multiple, different modeling scenarios; running each of the multiple, different modeling scenarios to determine, for each of the multiple, different modeling scenarios, updated supply, demand, and gap measurements for the first type of labor resource that account for the resource data and one or more constraints of the corresponding modeling scenario; calculating a cost associated with each of the multiple, different modeling scenarios based on the cost measure associated with the one or more of the first type of labor resources within the organization and the updated supply, demand, and gap measurements for each of the multiple, different modeling scenarios; and based on the calculated cost associated with each of the multiple, different modeling scenarios and the updated supply, demand, and gap measurements for each of the multiple, different modeling scenarios, providing output that indicates the updated supply, demand, and gap measurements for each of the multiple, different modeling scenarios in association with the calculated cost associated with each of the multiple, different modeling scenarios.