ABSTRACTThis paper presents a branch and bound algorithm for assigning men to machines in a production system. The labor assignment problem of concern in this paper occurs when 1) a single operator can service several semi‐automatic machines simultaneously, 2) the service and machine processing times are different among the machines and are deterministic, 3) a strict cyclic service discipline is assumed, and 4) the combined costs of idle labor and machine time are to be minimized. The paper includes a formal definition of the labor assignment problem, a description of the branch and bound algorithm, and a discussion of the computational experience with the algorith