1-58

co-riparv
sengl i arlp0ve qurnltsHower,nlyifthe"go- "dateisAprl1.
IRE TRAINSACTIONS ON ENGINEERING MANAGEMEANT

An Approach to Probabilistic Forecasting of

Engineering Manpower Requirements*
L. B. WADELt, SENIOR MEMBER, IRE AND C. M. BUSHt, MEMBER

probable future manpower requirements in the face of uncertainty

aboult the success of outstanding bids.v

pa' of normal good planning procedures, a only

company mZlust periodically forecast its future
engineering manpower requirements. H owever,
which bids
companywhich coimpetitivelx for
bd'comettvey f ddevrelopmenltal
contracts cannot knoow exactly which of its outstanding contract
bids will prove successful, m-oreover, until a contract
award is actually im-ade, the "go-ahead" date is unkniown.
In the subsequent discussion a probabilistic method of
estinrlting engiineering mwanpower requiremnents under
these circumstances is described, This approaeh will be where
valid only if a "large5" niumber of bids are simultaneously
outstanding, and if the personnel required are reasonably M(t)
interchanigeabl.e.
Suppose thatl it is known that a single
1~~~~~~
received and that
.

the " go-ahead " being Jai-nuary 1 FebruaryT 1, March 1, or

April 1,<Thenlthe "expected':]
I. Thne- the manpower
.
contract callinig
for applicatiojn of teii meniefor five months will su-rely be

requiremeint
-
It

~P ~~~~~~~~~~~~P

(
t
=
M(t) P
IRE

Summary-A statistical technique is presented for estimating The expected requirement peaks at ten men during April
and May, because un*der the give assumptions the con-

A mathematical formulation of this procedure follows:

The expected mianpower
is given by3
n

"expected manpower required as a function

of calendar time,

0 < P < I
mj . there is 225 per celnt probability each of . Ml(t) = ith possible np
It 2p
1 2,
probability
September

tract will be in force during those inonths regardless of the

"lgo-ahead"
2.5,
date. The August expected requirement is
because August work on this contract will occur

requirement for a specific

M (t)p(AMj) (1)

= over-all probabilityv of geJtting the coritract,

o p o g
m-aiipower assignmenlt fuinction,

of occurrence of M(t) if contract

Ap*il
during January will be 1xpis
(0.25) (10) men received at all,
= 2.5 The expected
requiremenit dturing Flebruary will be 2.5 n-iel- carried n

froi a possible Jainuarv start plus 2.5 men froin a pos- EPwi)
sible Piebruary start, or a total of 5.0 meni. The complete
iabulationI thiis beeomiies For computational convenience, t is treated as a dis-
crete variable: Mi(t) and fl1(t) are assumed to be constant
tontd Expected Manpower Repiremenlt during each unit time interval (e.g., one week), changing
stepwise from one interval to the next,
Ianuary 2. 5 For each possible go-ahead date ti, a single manpower
February 5.( assignment funetion Mi (t) is chosen. Then p((Mi) becomes
Mareh 7.5 p(tS), the probabilitv of go-ahead occurring at t.
April 10.0 The p(ti), as well as P, may be estimated on the basis
;Nlay 10.0 of past experience with the particular type of contract
Ju ne, 7.5 and customer, extrapolations from ctustomer statements
July 50 made in the original request for bid and sutbsequently,
August 2.5 and whatever other information may be available.
-- If the 11i (t) are identical except for go-ahead date,
Total man-n-onths 50. 0. iI(t) may be written as M(t - ti), and (1) becomes

* Received by the PGTEM, D)ecemlber, 1960.

t Electronics I)iv,, Chance Voulght Aircraft, Inc., Dallas, Tex.
"fExpected"' is used in its statistical sense throughout.
2 Note that the total of expected man-mnorths samle
is the
actual man-months requlired; ten men for five months equals 50
as the ' P. M{. Morse and G. E. Kimball, "Methods of Operations
Research," John Wtiley and Sons, Inc., New York, N. Y.; 1lst ed.
man-mwonths. revr.; 1951.
1961 Wadel and Bush: Probabilistic Forecasting of Manpower Requirements 159

0.10-
40-
0.09
35 X l008-
D

0.07-

-0.06-
.0 0.05-
15- .0
0~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

s0 0I0
-o.04

5- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~0.01
0
Ol i 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 162Jan 30 Jan 27 Feb 27Mar 24Apr 22 May

Time from go-ahead, weeks Go-ahead date, ti

Fig. 1. Fig. 2.

12-

10
9C t
a)CS
E7
6-
5-o
a's

2-
X~~~~~~Fg 3. 14 Aug
2 24Apr 22Moy 19Jun
30 Jon 217Feb 27Mar
Jon 17.JuI
Calendar time, t
Fig. 3.
As an example, Fig. 1 illustrates a possible M(t - ti) APPENDIX
function, while Fig. 2 shows a hypothetical plot of p(ti). If time is treated as a continuous variable, (2) is replaced
For the value of P = 0.5, M(t) has been calculated from by
(2) and plotted in Fig. 3. This, then, is the "expected" t
future manpower requirement related to one particular M(t) = P M(t - ti)p(ti) dti. (3)
contract bid.
In itself, this "expected" result is useless, since a As an analogy, it is interesting to note that if an input
specific contract will either be awarded in full on a specific signal equal to M(t) is applied to a linear filter with
date or not awarded at all. However, the total "expected" weighting function equal to p(ti), the filter output Eo
future manpower requirement may be found by summing will be4
the M(t)'s calculated for each outstanding bid.3 Ele- E
tM(t-t,)p(tj) dt. (4)
mentary statistical considerations ensure that the greater
the number of outstanding bids, the greater the relative
accuracy of this total "expectation" in estimating actual
Thus E0 equals M(t) except for a scale factor of P.
requirements. As a crude rule, the method1should not be ~4 H. M. James, et al., "Theory of Servomechanisms," McGraw-
used unless at least five bids are involved. Hill Book Co., Inc., New York, N. Y.; 1947.