A Flexible Shift System for a Fully-Continuous Production Division

In this paper, we develop and evaluate a shift system for a fully-continuous production division that allows incorporating standby duties to cope with production-related fluctuations in personnel demand. We start by analyzing the relationships between fundamental parameters of shift models, including working hours, weekend load and flexibility and introduce approaches to balance out these parameters. Based on these considerations we develop a binary feasibility problem to find a suitable shift plan that is parametrized in the number of standby shifts.