Abstract
Traditionally, the managers in a distribution center (DC) roughly evaluate the performance variations via the traditional decision support information (i.e., broken-line graphs of the employee performance) to determine whether an employee should be rewarded or trained. Since the performance variations of employees might include some involuntary performance variations, the employee performance trend might not be accurately identified if the DC managers rely only on the traditional decision support information. In order to provide improved decision support information without involuntary performance variations, this study develops an integrated model for employee performance estimation and trend analysis which includes the shop-floor data processing, performance trend analysis and trend index visualization modules. The proposed model can be used to estimate the employee performance and analyze the performance trend under the condition that the external variations have been removed. Based on the proposed model, this study also establishes a web-based system to generate the performance trend analysis diagram. According to the diagram, the DC managers can efficiently and easily acquire the employee performance trend at a specific time interval and for a long time. A real-word case was used to evaluate applicability of the proposed model and platform. Furthermore, the effect of the external variations and the advantages of the performance trend analysis diagram were investigated. As a whole, by using the proposed model, the DC manager can comprehensively identify whether an employee should be rewarded or trained based on the traditional and improved decision support information.