DYNAMIC OPTIMIZATION

It refers to the process of minimizing or maximizing the costs/benefits of some objective function over a period of time. Sometimes called optimal control There are four components of optimization process:1. A dynamic system to be controlled 2. A performance criterion which defines movementgoal 3. A controller which acts on the system 4. An algorithm which implements the control

Objective: The challenge is to allocate the personnel to project maintenance without slowing down the projects in process of making. Thus, safeguarding the critical and non-critical tasks of a multi-project environment. While achieving high customer satisfaction on projects delivered. Factors affecting the head count (Labour Requirement): These factors vary continuously over time Till the Project goes Live Complexity of task at hand (High complexity will require more labour as a more complex task has to be divided into smaller simpler tasks which will require more labour) Problems being faced by the team Skill of the Labour Average time taken by a person to perform a required task After the Project has gone live Technical Absorption by the Client Change Management Number of tickets Complexity of task at hand Type of request of Customer Assumptions: The organisation has limited labour which it uses on different projects running parallel. The organisation is working on Fixed Price Model i.e. we have already fixed the revenue that the organisation will earn from this project. Hence minimizing our cost will maximize our profits As the dynamics of such a situation change over time we are doing Dynamic Labour Allocation We assume that level of skill of all the persons are same and we pay all of them equal salary

Interpretation of Graph: The graph is shown between the Headcount (Labour) and Time. It shows Labour varying as a function of time. Number of persons working on the project at different stages will vary with time. We will be concentrating on two different Development of project (0 < t TL) Support, Maintenance and Enhancement (TL < t < T) Development of project (0 < t TL): The requirement of labour increases as we move towards the Requirement Analysis phase Development in the SDLC and the labour requirement is maximum during the Development Phase. This is shown in the graph from 0 < t < TD. Here TD represents the time at which the Development phase is complete. After the Development phase is over, the labour requirement of Labour again starts to fall as we progress further into the SDLC. This is shown in the graph from TD < t < TL Here TL represents the time at which the project has been deployed by the customer and project has gone live.

Support, Maintenance and Enhancement (TL < t < T): i )Critical Time Period (TL < t < TC) For every project a critical time period is defined. This time period begins as soon as the project goes live. This is labelled as Critical Time Period as maximum problems are faced during this period by the customer. The duration of this Critical Time Period is different for different projects and depends on the complexity of design and the anticipated number of problems. During this time the Labour requirement is high and remains constant. This is shown in the graph from TL < t < TC ii )Stabilization Time Period (TC < t < T) After the Critical Time Period has passed, the process starts to stabilize. This time phase is known as Stabilization Phase. During this period the Labour requirement decreases over time as the glitches and bugs if any are ironed out and the customer also becomes more proficient.

Conclusion: From the above analysis we reach to the conclusion that the given problem; allocation of workforce in an IT industry is a dynamic activity and occurs in continuous time frame, hence we suggest that the labour allocation is a function of time.