Expanding Service Capabilities Through an On-Demand Workforce

IF 0.7 4区管理学 Q3 Engineering

Military Operations Research Pub Date : 2023-07-31 DOI:10.1287/opre.2021.0651

Xu Sun, Weiliang Liu

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Call Center Staffing: On-Demand Is in Demand Traditional call centers face challenges in quickly adapting their service capacity to meet fluctuations in demand, even with short staffing periods. In their research article “Expanding Service Capabilities Through an On-Demand Workforce,” Sun and Liu propose a solution for call centers to improve service levels and reduce operating expenses. They develop a two-stage decision model that determines the optimal combination of permanent and on-demand staff, along with an optimal on-demand staffing and call scheduling policy that minimizes costs. By utilizing diffusion approximation, they derive approximate solutions for the second-stage problem. The optimal staffing rule employs switching boundaries to determine when to bring in or dismiss on-demand agents, while the scheduling rule employs a nested threshold rule that prioritizes customer urgency. Interestingly, the call scheduling rule exhibits an intriguing pattern arising from the interaction between on-demand staffing and call scheduling decisions. Their research findings highlight significant cost savings achievable through the implementation of an on-demand workforce.

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通过按需劳动力扩展服务能力

呼叫中心人员配置:随需应变传统呼叫中心面临着快速调整服务能力以满足需求波动的挑战，即使人员配置周期很短。在他们的研究文章“通过按需劳动力扩展服务能力”中，孙和刘为呼叫中心提出了一个解决方案，以提高服务水平并降低运营费用。他们开发了一个两阶段决策模型，该模型确定了固定员工和按需员工的最佳组合，以及按需员工和呼叫调度策略的最佳组合，从而使成本最小化。利用扩散近似，导出了第二阶段问题的近似解。最优人员配置规则使用切换边界来确定何时引入或解雇按需代理，而调度规则使用嵌套的阈值规则来优先考虑客户的紧迫性。有趣的是，呼叫调度规则显示了一种有趣的模式，这种模式是由按需人员配置和呼叫调度决策之间的交互产生的。他们的研究结果强调了通过实施按需劳动力可以实现的显著成本节约。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Military Operations Research 管理科学-运筹学与管理科学

CiteScore

1.00

自引率

0.00%

发文量

审稿时长

>12 weeks

期刊介绍： Military Operations Research is a peer-reviewed journal of high academic quality. The Journal publishes articles that describe operations research (OR) methodologies and theories used in key military and national security applications. Of particular interest are papers that present: Case studies showing innovative OR applications Apply OR to major policy issues Introduce interesting new problems areas Highlight education issues Document the history of military and national security OR.