A lecturer-committee assignment problem using integer programming model

This study focuses on the lecturer-committee assignment problem at the School of Quantitative Sciences (SQS), Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM). In SQS, committees are established to support the school to achieve the UUM key performance indicators (KPIs). Therefore, each committee requires a certain number of lecturers to organize activities within their job specifications. Currently, lecturers are assigned manually to the committees by the SQS management team. There is no systematic approach to assigning the lecturers to the committees. This may cause the lack of interest of the lecturers and their commitment. To overcome the drawbacks, this study develops an Integer Programming (IP) model to assign the lecturers to committees by considering both the lecturers’ and management team’s preferences. The IP model maximizes the total preference weight of the lecturers based on 20 committees recommended by the management. The preference weight was obtained from a survey conducted to 54 lecturers. The optimal solution of the IP model provides a higher total preference weight compared to the current practice with an increment of 19.91%, which reflects a better solution to the SQS lecturer-committee assignment problem. The developed IP model effectively and systematically assists the management team in assigning lecturers to the committees, which may increase their satisfaction and commitment to achieve the UUM’s KPIs.