Intelligent procedures for intra-day updating of call center agent schedules

Production and Operations Management

Volumn 19, Issue 3, 2010, Pages 353-367

  Mehrotra, Vijay ^a   Ozlük, Ozgür ^b   Saltzman, Robert ^b  

^a UNIVERSITY OF SAN FRANCISCO   (United States)

^b SAN FRANCISCO STATE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

Call center operations; Doubly stochastic processes; Integer programming; Real time optimization; Workforce scheduling

Indexed keywords

EID: 77953490935     PISSN: 10591478     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1937-5956.2009.01097.x     Document Type: Article

References (42)

1. Abernathy, W. J., N. Baloff, J. C. Hershey, S. Wandel. 1973. A threestage manpower planning and scheduling model - a service-sector example. Oper. Res. 22(3): 693-711.
2. Aksin, Z., M. Armony, V. Mehrotra. 2007. The modern call-center: A multi-disciplinary perspective on operations management research. Prod. Oper. Manag. 16(6): 665-688.
3. Andrews, B. H., S. M. Cunningham. 1995. L.L. Bean improves callcenter forecasting. Interfaces 25(6): 1-13.
4. Armony, M., C. Maglaras. 2004. On customer contact centers with a call-back option: Customer decisions, routing rules, and system design. Oper. Res. 52(2): 271-292. (Pubitemid 40000805)
5. Avramidis, A. N., A. Deslauriers, P. L'Ecuyer. 2004. Modeling daily arrivals to a telephone call center. Manage. Sci. 50(7): 896-908.
6. Bhandari, M., Harchol-Balter, A. Scheller-Wolf. 2008. An exact and efficient algorithm for the constrained dynamic operator staffing problem for call centers. Manage. Sci. 54(2): 339-353.
7. Bodily, S. E., J. R. Freeland. 1988. A simulation of techniques for forecasting shipments using firm orders-to-date. J. Oper. Res. Soc. 39(9): 833-846.
8. Brown, L. D., N. Gans, A. Mandelbaum, A. Sakov, H. Shen, S. Zeltyn, L. Zhao. 2005. Statistical analysis of a telephone call center: A queueing-science perspective. J. Am. Stat. Assoc. 100(469): 36-50.
9. Cleveland, B., J. Mayben. 1997. Call Center Management on Fast Forward. Call Center Press, Annapolis, MD.
10. Easton, F. F., J. Goodale. 2005. Schedule recovery: Unplanned absences in service operations. Decision Sci. 36(3): 459-488.
11. Ernst, A. T., H. Jiang, M. Krishnamoorthy, B. Owens, D. Sier. 2004. An annotated bibliography of personnel scheduling and rostering. Ann. Oper. Res. 127(1-4): 21-144.
12. Fylstra, D., L. Lasdon, J. Watson, A. Waren. 1998. Design and use of the Microsoft Excel solver. Interfaces 28(5): 29-55. (Pubitemid 128162153)
13. Gans, N., G. Koole, A. Mandelbaum. 2003. Telephone call centers: Tutorial, review and research prospects. Manuf. Serv. Oper. Manage. 5(2): 79-141.
14. Gans, N., Y.-P. Zhou. 2007. Call-routing schemes for call-center outsourcing. Manuf. Serv. Oper. Manage. 9(1): 33-50.
15. Grassman, W. K. 1988. Finding the right number of servers in realworld queueing systems. Interfaces 18(2): 94-104.
16. Green, L. V., P. J. Kolesar, J. Soares. 2001. Improving the SIPP approach for staffing service systems that have cyclic demands. Oper. Res. 49(4): 549-564.
17. Green, L. V., P. J. Kolesar, J. Soares. 2003. An improved heuristic for staffing telephone call centers with limited operating hours. Prod. Oper. Manag. 12(1): 1-16.
18. Guerrero, V. M., J. A. Elizondo. 1997. Forecasting a cumulative variable based on its partially accumulated data. Manage. Sci. 43(6): 879-889.
19. Harrison, J. M., A. Zeevi. 2005. A method for staffing large call centers using stochastic fluid models. Manuf. Serv. Oper. Manage. 7(1): 20-36.
20. Hur, D. 2002. A comparative evaluation of forecast monitoring systems in service organizations. 33rd Annual Meeting of the Decision Sciences Institute, San Diego, CA.
21. Hur, D., V. A. Mabert, K. M. Bretthauer. 2004. Real-time work schedule adjustment decisions: An investigation and evaluation. Prod. Oper. Manag. 13(4): 322-339. (Pubitemid 40306047)
22. Jongbloed, G., G. Koole. 2001. Managing uncertainty in call centers using Poisson mixtures. Appl. Stoch. Models Bus. Ind. 17(2001): 307-318. (Pubitemid 34023119)
23. Kekre, S., T. E. Morton, T. L. Smunt. 1990. Forecasting using partially known demands. Int. J. Forecast. 6(1): 115-125.
24. Mabert, V. A. 1991. Ohio Valley National Bank, Cases in Manufacturing and Services Management. Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ.
25. Mabert, V. A. 1995. PSI Energy's call center. Unpublished case study, Indiana University, IN.
26. Mehrotra, V. 1997. Ringing up big business. OR/MS Today 24(4): 18-24.
27. Mehrotra, V., C. Wright, S. Patel. 2009. An investigation into the business processes, job descriptions, and human resource factors associated with successful workforce management practice, Working Paper, San Francisco State University, San Francisco, CA.
28. Milner, J., T. Lennon-Olson. 2008. Service level agreements in call centers: Perils and prescriptions. Manage. Sci. 54(2): 238-252. (Pubitemid 351463141)
29. Pot, A., G. Koole. 2005. Approximate dynamic programming for multi-skill call centers. Proceedings of the 2005 Winter Simulation Conference, Piscataway, NJ.
30. Robbins, T. R. 2007. Addressing Arrival Rate Uncertainty in Call Center Workforce Management. Proceedings of the 2007 IEEE/ INFORMS International Conference on Service Operations and Logistics, and Informatics, Philadelphia, PA.
31. Saltzman, R. 2005. A hybrid approach to minimizing the cost of staffing a call center. Int. J. Oper. Quant. Manage. 11(1): 1-14. (Pubitemid 41056874)
32. Shen, H., J. Z. Huang. 2008. Interday forecasting and Intraday updating of call center arrivals. Manuf. Serv. Oper. Manage. 10(3): 391-410.
33. Steckley, S., S. Henderson, V. Mehrotra. 2004. Service system planning in the presence of a random arrival rate. Working paper, Department of Operations Research and Industrial Engineering, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY
34. Steckley, S., S. Henderson, V. Mehrotra. 2009. Forecast errors in service systems. Probab. Eng. Inf. Sci. 23(2): 305-332.
35. Thompson, G. M. 1996. Controlling actions in daily workforce schedules. Cornell Hotel Restaurant Admin. Q. 37(2): 82-96.
36. Thompson, G. M. 1998. Labor scheduling, part 1: Forecasting demand. Cornell Hotel Restaurant Admin. Q. 39(5): 22-31.
37. Thompson, G. M. 1999. Labor scheduling, part 4: Controlling workforce schedules in real-time. Cornell Hotel Restaurant Admin. Q. 40(3): 85-96.
38. Wallace, R., W. Whitt. 2005. A staffing algorithm for call centers with skill-based routing. Manuf. Serv. Oper. Manage. 7(4): 276-294. (Pubitemid 41706015)
39. Weinberg, J., J. L. D. Brown, J. R. Stroud. 2007. Bayesian forecasting of an inhomogeneous Poisson process with applications to call center data. J. Am. Stat. Assoc. 102(480): 1185-1198.
40. Whitt, W. 1999. Dynamic staffing in a telephone call center aiming to immediately answer all calls. Oper. Res. Lett. 24(5): 205-212.
41. Whitt, W. 2002. Stochastic-Process Limits. Springer Series in Operations Research. Springer, New York.
42. Whitt, W. 2006. Staffing a call center with uncertain arrival rate and absenteeism. Prod. Oper. Manag. 15(1): 88-102. (Pubitemid 43835652)