A manpower planning decision support system for MQM Meat Services
MQM Meat Services is a New Zealand government agency carrying out meat inspection throughout New Zealand. Owing to legislative changes the agency is moving towards competing in a contestable environment. This paper describes a planning model that was developed to help the agency's regional centre at Ruakura decide on staffing levels for service delivery to 14 meat plants. Each meat plant has a fixed number of meat inspectors and meat veterinarians employed at any one time. Meat inspection is highly seasonal with peak manpower requirements occurring during the period November to June. Planned and unplanned absenteeism, and training requirements further exacerbate the fluctuations. To meet fluctuations in service requirements, a number of reserve meat inspectors are employed. The planning model described in the paper is designed to determine staffing levels year by year.
manpower planning decision support systems chance constrained programming meat inspection services