Human performance modeling for manufacturing based on an improved KNN algorithm

Human performance is a key factor in a manufacturing system. Behavior modeling is a very important but difficult problem when describing human activities. Performance modeling based on data mining is an effective way to help managers predict personnel’s capabilities and to recruit appropriate new staff with relevant skills, which can be significant to ensure an enterprise’s competitiveness. The K-nearest neighbor (KNN) algorithm is the most common classification algorithm in cases of no prior knowledge of data distribution. In the paper, an improved KNN algorithm was proposed to cope with the human performance prediction problem with the improvements in three aspects, which are the neighboring distance calculation based on entropy, the classification determination strategy, and the quantitative description method of human performance. The improved KNN algorithm was proved to have better classification ability in comparison with other seven typical KNN algorithms and five classic classification algorithms using data sets from the University of California, Irvine (UCI) machine learning repository. The improved KNN algorithm was further tested with a real-world case of performance prediction, and the effectiveness of the algorithm was confirmed.