The affect of personnel or operator allocation on batch plant scheduling is presented. The main challenge in dealing with operator allocation is the fact that operators tend to be more qualitative than quantitative, which renders traditional mathematical techniques inadequate. The scheduling model presented in this article takes into consideration the competency of selected and allocated operators. Also presented in this article is a new planning model to determine optimal scheduling time horizons on normal and penalized (holiday or weekend) days, concomitant with the corresponding shift patterns. The difference in basic and overtime payment is taken into account to determine the length of working time of each operator on a given day. Associated with the length of working time is the appropriate shift pattern, given that very long hours may justify more than one shaft. The resultant integrated planning and scheduling model is decomposed by exploiting its block angular structure. (C) 2004 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 50: 999-1016, 2004