Application of linear programming for expatriate assignment planning

Abstract

An expatriate is a person who lives temporarily or resides outside her/his native country or a foreign who lives in a country. It is usually because of a state or professional duty. The activity of sending employees to branch companies in other countries is called expatriation. Expatriation activities are high cost activities, so the need of sending employees to branch companies in other countries must be carefully calculated. Assignment problems occur in various decision-making situations which include assignment of work for machinery, agents for special tasks, sales personnel in the sales area and others. The distinguishing characteristic of an assignment problem is that one agent is assigned to one task. The research was conducted at PT. Asian Hybrid Seed Technologies Indonesia, where the company will open three new marketing areas and require expatriates to be assigned as project leaders. In this article, a set of assignments to optimize the objectives function, namely minimizing cost and time, was solved by using linear programming model.