1 of 2 Gateway International Airport Gateway International Airport (GIA) has experienced substantial growth in both commercial and general aviation operations during the past several years. (An operation is a landing or takeoff.) Because of the initiation of new commercial service at the airport, which is scheduled for several months in the future, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has concluded that the increased operations and associated change in the hourly distribution of takeoffs and landings will require an entirely new work schedule for the current air traffic control (ATC) staff. The FAA feels that GIA might need to hire additional ATC personnel, because the present staff of five probably will not be enough to handle the expected demand. After examining the various service plans that each commercial airline submitted for the next six-month period, the FAA developed an average hourly demand forecast of total operations (Figure 12.14) and a weekly forecast of variation from the average daily demand (Figure 12.15). An assistant to the manager for operations has been delegated the task of developing workforce requirements and schedules for the ATC staff to maintain an adequate level of operational safety with a minimum of excess ATC "capacity." FIGURE 12.14 Hourly Demand for Operations Total number of operations 108 S 0000 0010 0200 0300 0400 0500 0600 0700 0800 0900 1000 0011 38 35 Hour of day 1200 1300 1400 1500 1600 1700 1800 1900 24 2000 2100 2200 2300 2400 The various constraints are: 1. Each controller will work a continuous, 8-hour shift (ignoring any lunch break), which always will begin at the start of an hour at any time during the day (i.e., any and all shifts begin at X:00), and the controller must have at least 16 hours off before resuming duty. 2. Each controller will work exactly five days per week. 3. Each controller is entitled to two consecutive days off, with any consecutive pair of days being eligible. 4. FAA guidelines will govern GIA's workforce requirements so that the ratio of total operations to the number of available controllers in any hourly period cannot exceed 16. FIGURE 12.15 Daily Demand Variation from Average Percentage variation from average daily operations +20 +10 +8% +4% +4% +12% A L -10 Sun. Mon. Tues. Wed. Thurs. -20 -20% Fri. Sat. -8% Questions 1. Assume that you are the assistant to the manager for operations at the FAA. Use the techniques of workshift scheduling to analyse the total workforce requirements and days-off schedule. For the primary analysis, assume that a. Operator requirements will be based on a shift profile of demand (i.e., eight hours). There will be exactly three separate shifts each day, with no overlapping of shifts. b. The distribution of hourly demand in Figure 12.14 is constant for each day of the week, but the levels of hourly demand vary during the week as shown in Figure 12.15. 2. On the basis of your primary analysis, discuss the potential implications for workforce requirements and days-off scheduling if assumptions a and b above are relaxed so that the analysis can be based on hourly demand without the constraints of a preset number of shifts and no overlapping of shifts. In other words, discuss the effects of analyzing hourly demand requirements on the basis of each ATC position essentially having its own shift, which can overlap with any other ATC shift to meet that demand. 3. Do you feel this would result in a larger or smaller degree of difficulty in meeting the four general constraints? Why? 4. What additional suggestions can you make to the manager of operations to minimize the workforce requirements level and days-off scheduling difficulty?