F ij represents the accounted work load on capacity group I resulting from the releasing job j into the shop floor, and rwi is the reference work load level set for i. The best balancing situation is obtained by minimizing BI. This strategy assumes that relaxing workload norms, by using workload balancing, do not necessarily lead to a higher average workload on the shop floor (Land and Gaalman, 1998). The strategy tends to compensate for the fact that, when workload across capacity groups is poorly balanced, rigid upper workload limits for the