Management procedure for handicapped worker involvement in Japanese industries: Job selection/assignment models and their application

This paper discusses about the recent trend of handicapped worker involvement in industrial activities in Japan and focusing on technological issue supporting smooth involvement, an effective procedure of job selection/assignment to handicapped persons is proposed. On the former issue, socio-economic aspect of handicapped workers involvement is investigated for essential understanding about the current situation of this topic. On the latter issue, procedures enabling to provide a reasonable vocational advice and rational work formation for handicapped persons are proposed as effective management tools. These procedures are formulated in terms of mathematical programming models and database of evaluated performance of each handicapped worker's function, cross-relation between body portions and operations etc. Case study through collaboration with public training center for handicapped persons and a company that employs many handicapped workers is also described to ascertain the relevancy of the proposed procedure.