A FRAMEWORK FOR BUILDING A WEB-BASED DECISION

SUPPORT SYSTEM FOR JOB ASSIGNMENT

Patravadee Vongsumedh

Information Technology Department, School of Science and Technology, Bangkok University

Rama 4 Road, Klong-Toey, BKK, Thailand, 10110

Keywords: Decision Making Process, Decision Support System, Job Assignment, Putting the Right Man on the Right

Job, Web-based Decision Support System.

Abstract: In order to achieve the concept of “Putting the right man on the right job”, the job director has to clearly

understand job’s requirements, related job’s skills, and, especially, employee who is possible to be assigned

to do the given jobs. The fulfillment of these concerned issues could be done by one of the information

systems called “Decision Support System” (DSS), which provides capabilities of identifying possible

alternatives (that is, the appropriate employees), supporting the alternative-comparison process, and

making-choice process. The DSS’s capabilities in supporting job assignment process increase not only the

job director’s satisfaction in assigning job, but also the employee’s satisfaction in doing the assigned job.

Moreover, the “Flexibility” is another factor required by the job directors in performing job assignment, and

communicating with their employees. Therefore, this research proposes a framework for building a Web-

based DSS for job assignment.

1 INTRODUCTION

The Information System (IS) and its applications are

the empirical factors for success of business

operations in all levels of organizational structure.

By serving across the enterprise, the ISs must

completely support the varied business operations

done by various groups of users, provide the

appropriate user interfaces, and provide the

information relevant to the users’ requirements.

Though the IS’s efficiency in generating the “User-

Required Information” is important for the success

of business operation, the completeness and

correctness of the information provided is important

as well. Therefore, this research focuses on building

an efficient and effective Web-based DSS that

provides appropriate and necessary information for

supporting job assignment process through the web.

This system can be called the “Web-based Job

Assignment’s Decision support system” (or

WJADSS).

Based on the basic architecture of DSS (Dong

and Loo, 2001; Sauter, 1997; Sprague, 1980; Turban

et al., 2005), the WJADSS consists of 4

components, which are “Dialog Component”,

“Model Component”, “Data Component”, and “Mail

Component”. These components fulfill the decision

making process of various job directors while doing

the job assignment. Though many DSSs were

developed to support job scheduling or job

assignment (Chauvet et al., 2000; Ferland and

Fleurent, 1994; Gopalakrishnan et al., 1993;

Schniederjans and Carpenter, 1996), these DSS

emphasize mostly on “Increasing Processing

Speed”, “Reducing Cost” of the given process, and

“Assigning Job Under Pre-defined Conditions”.

Therefore, this research attempt to propose the

framework for building the DSS that supports job

assignment process in general business units of any

organization. The proposed system provides not only

the models supporting quantitative analysis (done by

the system), but also the related information

necessary for heuristic analysis (done by job

directors).

The WJADSS provides necessary information of

both concerned jobs and employees to job directors

during job assignment process. Moreover, the

appropriate models would be activated to analyze

the related data under specific circumstances and

criteria. And, finally, the outcomes of alternatives

(or employees) comparison and evaluation may be

represented in form of text and graph. Because the

136

Vongsumedh P. (2007).

A FRAMEWORK FOR BUILDING A WEB-BASED DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEM FOR JOB ASSIGNMENT.

In Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Web Information Systems and Technologies - Web Interfaces and Applications, pages 136-141

DOI: 10.5220/0001263301360141

 SciTePress

WJADSS focuses on the concept of “Putting the

right man on the right job” and the “Fairness” of

job assignment process, this system increase not

only job director’s satisfaction in assigning job, but

also increase the employee’s satisfaction in doing

assigned job.

2 CONCERNED FACTORS FOR

JOB ASSIGNMENT PROCESS

During job assignment, the job directors have to

identify the job skills necessary for doing concerned

jobs, and clearly understand the capabilities of

employees who may be assigned to do the given jobs

(Cascio, 2003; Department of Human Services,

2006; Ivancevich, 2004; Jackson and Schuler, 2003).

Moreover, “reasonableness of being assigned the

new job”, which is determined by amounts of job

being done by specific employee, must be taken into

account. Therefore, the concerned factors of job

assignment process are divided into 2 groups:

A. “Job-related Factors” refers to the

characteristics of job or the criteria in doing

concerned job. When the new job occurs in the

business unit, these factors must be identified.

 Job Requirements (or Job Skill):

After determining the new job, job skills

required for doing concerned job are listed.

The given skills are necessary for

determining the employee, and, then,

pointing out the appropriate employee who

is possible to be assigned to do job. It is

exactly clear that the employee who is

assigned to do a particular job must match

the job requirements (Kaixuan, 1994;

Schneier et al., 1995).

 Job’s Working Duration: The

working duration of specific job is useful for

identifying job’s submission deadline. That

is, it is calculated by determining the job’s

started date and the job’s working duration.

After submitting job, the job’s submitted

date is compared to the job’s submission

deadline in order to evaluate the work

efficiency (or performance) of employee.

The outcome of the given evaluation is

taken into account for the next job

assignment (Cascio, 2003).

B. “Employee-related Factors” refers to the

characteristics of the employee that would be

determined during job assignment process. The

necessary factors are shown below.

 Employee’s Capability: This factor refers to

the job skills occupied by the employee. The

given job skills (or employee’s capabilities

in doing job) must be matched the job skills

required for doing concerned job. This

matching basically guarantees the concept of

“putting the right man on the right job”.

 Amounts of Responsible Job: The job

directors have to take the amounts of job in

responsibility of any appropriate employee

into account, while doing job assignment.

Since the efficiency (or performance) and

effectiveness in performing job/task may be

reduced if the employees have to responsible

for many jobs/tasks at any given time

(Cascio, 2003).

 Work Performance: Amounts of on-time

complete job could be used as work

performance indicators of employees. They

show how well the employees perform their

jobs. Therefore, after doing job, the job

submitted date is compared to the job’s

submission deadline in order to indicate the

work performance of employee who handles

that job. If the employees completely and

correctly finish their jobs on time (or in

time), it can be inferred that they perform

jobs/tasks effectively. Moreover, the job

directors have to concern not only the

amounts of on-time complete jobs, but the

amounts of overdue jobs as well.

 Work Experience: In some situations and

some work areas, the work experience is

necessary for performing jobs/tasks. We

found that the experienced workers can

handle difficult questions and high-pressure

situations better than the novice workers.

Therefore, the information about the

employee’s work experience should be

provided to the job directors during job

assignment.

3 THE FRAMEWORK FOR A

WEB-BASED JOB

ASSIGNEMNT’S DECISION

SUPPORT SYSTEM (WJADSS)

After pointing out the important factors necessary

for determining both job and employee during job

assignment, the pointed out factors are applied to the

appropriate components of the WJADSS. That is, in

A FRAMEWORK FOR BUILDING A WEB-BASED DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEM FOR JOB ASSIGNMENT

137

order to fulfill the DSS capabilities in supporting job

assignment’s decision making process, the structures

and capabilities of WJADSS’s components are:

A. Dialog Component: Since the target users

of WJADSS are divided into 2 groups, job directors

and employees, the system provides 2 interface

modules. The first module facilitates job directors to

manipulate job’s profile, to create the employee

records, to assign job, and to check the progress of

assigned job. The last module facilitates employees

to edit their profiles (especially, the job skills that

could be changed over time), and to report job’s

progress back to the job director.

To answer the question “what are the

appropriate user interfaces for the WJADSS?”, the

system developers must clearly understand and

properly identify levels of user’s technical skill,

levels of user’s operational management, and

format of the output required by the users (Sauter,

1997). The examples of action languages appropriate

for WJADSS can be “Input-Output Format” (for

employee’s data entry), “Menu Driven Format” (for

commands selection), and so on.

Moreover, during job assignment, the system

should represent the outcome of decision making

process in terms of text and graph. These 2 forms of

representation enable the job directors to see both

details and overall picture of the alternatives’

comparison outcome.

B. Model Component: One of the important

components which provides analysis capabilities for

WJADSS is the model component. The given

component deals with all models (shown in Figure

1) necessary for analyzing job’s and employee’s data

during job assignment process. These models

provide the analysis capabilities to WJADSS in

order to perform the following issues:

Figure 1: Models Performing Analysis Capability in

WJADSS.

 Analyzing the appropriateness of job skills

by determining ratio of job’s requirements to

the job skills occupied by specific employee.

When P is the percentage of appropriateness

of job skill. This can be calculated by the

below formula:

P = (

) × 100 (1)

Where;

A : Amount of job skills which are

occupied by the employee and are

matched to the job skills required by

the concerned job (A = 1, 2, 3, ...)

B : Amount of job skills required by any

job (B = 1, 2, 3, ...)

 Analyzing the work performance of any

concerned employee. When W is the work

performance of any concerned employee.

W =

∑

(2)

Where;

SC : Score of on-time complete jobs

SA : Score of both on-time complete and

delayed jobs

N : Amount of on-time complete job.

I : 1, 2, 3, ..., N

M : Amount of both on-time complete

and delayed job.

J : 1, 2, 3, ..., N

 Identifying the percentage of work success.

When S is the percentage of work success.

This can be calculated by the below

formula:

S = (

) × 100 (3)

Where;

N : Amount of on-time complete job.

M : Amount of both on-time complete

and delayed job

 Analyzing the percentage of

appropriateness in being assigned to do

job. Based on a set of criteria identified by

the job director, Q is the appropriateness of

being assigned job. This can be calculated

by the below formula:

Q =

∑

)C W(

(4)

Where;

W : Weight or percentage of the certain

Dialog

Component

(or UI)

Mail or Message

Component

(

E-Mail

)

Data Component

Model Component

DBMS

Model Pool

* Analyzing the appropriateness of job

skills

* Analyzing the employee’s work

performance

* Analyzing the percentage of work success

* Analyzing the percentage of

appropriateness in being assigned to do

Users

(Job Directors

and Em

ees

)

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138

criterion identified by the job

director.

C : Score of any concerned criterion

given by job director

i : Order of criteria used to evaluate the

alternatives (or employees)

N : Amount of criteria that the job

director selects to evaluate the

employee

Notes:

The criteria used to evaluate a group

of concerned employees can be, employee’s

work performance, amount of jobs in

responsibility, years employed (or work

experience), and etc.

Therefore, the total percentage of

appropriateness in being assigned to do job

(T) is determined by:

T = Q + P (5)

Where;

P : Percentage of appropriateness of job

skill

C. Data Component: To achieve the decision

making process for job assignment, the data stored

in the system’s data repository (shown in Figure 2)

can be divided into 4 categories:

 The job’s profile: The first data category

describes characteristics of any job in

specific business unit, such as, job skills

required by any job, job’s working duration,

job’s started date, job’s submitted date, job’s

status, and so on.

 The employee’s profile: The second data

category describes characteristics and

capabilities of any employee in specific

business unit, such as, job skills occupied by

any employee, job position, work-starting

date, and so on.

 The jobs in responsibility: The third data

category plays the important role in

identifying jobs undertaken by specific

employee at any given time. This data

represent the relationship between job and

employee. Moreover, the given data are

necessary for the job assignment process,

since the job director must take them into

account when assign job.

 The job’s progress report: The last data

category describes on-going job’s status,

job’s progress, and procedures of any job.

While the employees are doing assigned

jobs, they can report these data back to the

job director. Therefore, the job director can

check the progress of any job, and keep

tracks of events occurred during job’s

working duration.

Figure 2: Data Categories in WJADSS.

D. Mail Component: In any business unit, the

mail component enables communication between

job director and employee. The E-Mail could be sent

back and force among these people. That is, after

decision making process, the result of job

assignment could be sent from job director to the

specific employee. Moreover, while the employees

are doing assigned jobs, they may need the

communication’s capability in order to communicate

with the job director or the related employees.

4 THE DECISION MAKING

STEPS IN WEB-BASED JOB

ASSIGNMENT’S DECISION

SUPPORT SYSTEM

To enable job directors in doing job assignment, the

WJADSS provides both useful information and

system’s capabilities for supporting decision making

process during job assignment. The model shown in

Figure 3 represents “How does WJADSS work?”.

Based on the work flow represented in Figure 3,

the job directors firstly create the job’s profiles for

the new jobs entering in any business unit, while the

employees create their work profiles. The first

Dialog

Component

(or UI)

Mail or Message

Component

(by E-Mail)

Data Component

Model Component

DBMS

* The job’s profile

* The employee’s profile

* The jobs in responsibility

* The job’s progress report

Model Pool

Users

(Job Directors and

Employees)

A FRAMEWORK FOR BUILDING A WEB-BASED DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEM FOR JOB ASSIGNMENT

139

profile describes characteristics and requirements of

the concerned jobs, while the last one describes job

skills and personal data of the concerned employees.

During job assignment, these two profiles are

determined in order to guarantee the concept of

“putting the right man on the right job”. It ensures

that the employee is properly selected to do job. In

other word, the job skills of selected employee

correspond to or meet the job requirements.

Moreover, the information relate to the jobs handled

by selected employees must be concerned. Since the

work performance and work quality may decrease, if

the employees handle too many jobs at the same

time. Therefore, amount of workload is another

important factor that the job directors have to take

into account.

After first-step screening which determines only

employee’s job skills and job’s requirement

matching, the WJADSS lists all employees who are

possible to be assigned to do job. The WJADSS,

then, enables job directors to identify the criteria

necessary for alternatives (or employees)

comparison, such as, amounts of job in

responsibility, employee’s work performance, job

position, work experience, etc. Based on these

criteria, the related models in model base are

selected to provide analysis capabilities. The job

director, moreover, has to identify the weight or the

percentage of importance for each criterion. Since

the given weight set for any criterion influence the

alternatives (or employees) comparison process.

That is, the higher weight is set to any criterion, the

higher score is calculated from it.

When the comparison criteria and their weight of

importance are identified, the employee comparison

process begins. At this point, the job director has to

make sure that all concerned employees are

evaluated, and are scored based on the same set of

criteria.

After employee comparison process, the

WJADSS calculates score for all concerned

employees by summarizing the scores they get from

all criteria. The given outcome represents not only

evaluation score for each employee, but also

pinpoints the appropriateness for each employee in

being assigned to do job. That is, the highest

percentage means the most appropriate in doing job.

However, the job directors can make their own final

decision in assigning job to the most appropriate

employee. The WJADSS, then, send an E-Mail to

the assigned employee, when final decision is done.

Figure 3: The Work Flow of WJADSS.

The E-Mailing feature enables job directors and

employees to communicate with each other

anywhere, anytime. The job directors send job’s

directions, orders, or questions about concerned job

to the employees along with E-Mails. While, the

employees can send job’s progress report, questions,

or problems about the assigned job back to the job

directors as well. This information is very useful for

the job evaluation, and the next round of job

assignment’s decision making process.

Employee

Employee’s

Job’s

Pro

ress

Jobs in

Responsibility

Create new job’s

profile

Create employee’s

profile

Report job’s

progress

Job Directors

Initiate job assignment process

Update

job’s status

Do the employee’s

job skills meet the

job requirements?

No Yes

Evaluate the appropriateness of

employee’s job skills (1)

Assign job

Identify the criteria for possible

alternatives (or employees)

Identify the weight or percentage

of importance for each criterion

Evaluate the percentage of appropriateness in being

assigned job (all possible alternatives or employees

are evaluated based on the same criteria) (2) (3) (4)

Assign job

Mail to inform employee

Insert new assigned job

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5 CONCLUSION

To create a Web-based Job assignment’s DSS

(WJADSS), 4 components of the given system must

be determined and designed carefully. Firstly, the

DSS developers must clearly understand both

system’s target users and job assignment process.

This understanding helps system developers to

design system’s interfaces which are proper to

system’s target users and consistent to the job

assignment’s work flow. Moreover, understanding

of job assignment process is an empirical factor for

designing the rest components. It points out not only

the data necessary for making decision during job

assignment process, but also the analyzing methods

(or models) supporting the given process.

In order to boost up the web-based capability, the

WJADSS must be developed as the web-based

system which is browsed through the web browser.

This capability enables the job directors to do job

assignment anywhere anytime, and enables the

employees to perceive the job’s assignment from the

outside as well. After job assignment, two groups of

system’s target user: job directors and employees,

may communicate with each other through E-

Mailing system. The information get along an E-

Mail can be additional job’s direction, job’s progress

report, or problems occurred while doing job. The

given information is useful for both job’s and

employee’s evaluation. Moreover, it is useful for the

next round of job assignment process as well.

6 CURRENT STATUS AND

FUTURE WORK

Based on the proposed framework, the WJADSS is

currently implemented. The important modules

supporting job assignment process and job progress

report are firstly tested and debugged. After

implementation, the system would be launched and

be evaluated the efficiency and effectiveness. The

system evaluation must be determined in 3 aspects,

“Input of Decision Making Process”, “Output of

Decision Making Process”, and “Efficiency and

Effectiveness of Decision Making Process”.

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