Flexible Staffing for Call Centers with Non-stationary Arrival Rates

Alex Roubos (), Sandjai Bhulai () and Ger Koole ()
Additional contact information
Alex Roubos: CCmath
Sandjai Bhulai: Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Ger Koole: Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

Chapter Chapter 19 in Markov Decision Processes in Practice, 2017, pp 487-503 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract We consider a multi-period staffing problem of a single-skill call center. The call center is modeled as a multi-server queue in which the staffing levels can be changed only at specific moments in time. The objective is to set the staffing levels such that a service level constraint is met in the presence of time-varying arrival rates. We develop a Markov decision model to obtain time-dependent staffing levels for both the case where the arrival rate function is known as well as unknown. The characteristics of the optimal policies associated to the two cases are illustrated through a numerical study based on real-life data. We show that the optimal policies provide a good balance between staffing costs and the penalty probability for not meeting the service level.

Keywords: Call centers; Markov decision processes; Staffing; Time-varying arrival rates (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:isochp:978-3-319-47766-4_19

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/9783319477664

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-47766-4_19

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in International Series in Operations Research & Management Science from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().