Shift Scheduling for Third Level IT Support: Challenges, Models and Case Study

Abstract

Outsourcing IT support of an enterprise requires that third level IT support is provided as a service by the outsourcer. Although there is a large body of existing work regarding demand forecasting and shift schedule creation for various domains such as call centers, very little work exists for third level IT support. Moreover, there is a significant difference between such support and other types of services. As a result, current best practices for scheduling such work are not based on demand, but rather, on primitive rules of thumb. Due to the increasing number of people providing such support, theory and practice is sorely needed for scheduling third level support shifts according to actual demand. We discuss the issues associated with forecasting and scheduling such work. We also present an end-to-end methodology for forecasting and scheduling this type of work. We discuss this methodology and subsequent results in the context of a specific case study in which this methodology demonstrated significant potential savings in terms of manpower resources.