The effect of learning, forgetting, fatigue, and recovery on the performance of dual-resource constrained (DRC) systems

Dual-Resource Constrained (DRC) systems consist of two resources: workers and machines (stations). DRCs have become common in manufacturing and service firms that emphasise flexibility, where workers perform different tasks. Although having a flexible workforce is beneficial, it comes at a cost. When workers alternate between different jobs the productivity of the system is affected. On one hand the system becomes more responsive to changes (internal/external), and on the other hand worker productivity and system throughput deteriorate because of the loss of knowledge and workers’ fatigue. This subjects workers to conflicting phenomena. When workers are performing a task they are learning but also accumulating fatigue, which may result in error or injury. When transferred to another task, or on a break, workers may forget what they have learnt but at the same time recover from fatigue, either fully or partially. In particular, forgetting and fatigue are interesting to be considered as they directly affect the quality of products. This research investigates the effects of workers’ learning-forgetting and fatigue-recovery on DRC systems. First, it modifies a known learning-forgetting model by accounting for fatigue and recovery. Second, it assumes that the quality of a production process may deteriorate and generate defective items that require rework. Third, a human error model is developed that considers human learning-forgetting and fatigue-recovery in producing defective items. Fourth, a comprehensive model is developed that integrates learning, forgetting, fatigue, and recovery into a DRC system with quality consideration. This model is investigated for different transfer and flexibility policies. Numerical results provide insights and guidelines that may help operations managers with decisions on how to improve a system’s performance and throughput, while considering worker welfare. Results indicate that it is important to consider workers capabilities and limitations when designing manufacturing systems. They also suggest that ignoring human restrictions and abilities results in unrealistic production planning and erroneous cost estimation.