Three-phase approach to service staff assignment for MRO tasks

Whereas the importance of MRO (Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul/Operation) service has been emphasised in manufacturing industries, few studies have focused on service staff assignment of MRO activities in spite of its great relevance. This paper aims to propose a novel method for assigning proper staff to specific task in such activities. Business object and process models are established, while two key problems, namely skill requirement analysis for MRO service tasks and assigning service staff, are pointed out. To present MRO service skills and properties of level, skill vector is stated and used to analyse skill requirements of tasks. A three-phase approach to assign service staff is put forward, applying an improved Genetic Algorithm (GA) and specific evaluation pattern to intelligently search and rank the feasible groups of service staff. Finally, a decision support system that is implemented to validate the approach proposed ahead is introduced.