Simple Methods for Shift Scheduling in Multiskill Call Centers

A Simple Staffing Method for Multiskill Call Centers

W study a simple method for staffing in multiskill call centers. The method has short computation times and determines nearly optimal staffing levels. It is in both views competitive to other methods from the literature. Because of the fast and accurate performance of the method, many different scenarios can be analyzed, and our method can be used for both tactical and strategic capacity manage...

Optimizing daily agent scheduling in a multiskill call center

We examine and compare simulation-based algorithms for solving the agent scheduling problem in a multiskill call center. This problem consists in minimizing the total costs of agents under constraints on the expected service level per call type, per period, and aggregated. We propose a solution approach that combines simulation with integer or linear programming, with cut generation. In our num...

Multi-objective Solution Approaches for Employee Shift Scheduling Problems in Service Sectors (RESEARCH NOTE)

Today, workforce scheduling programs are being implemented in many production and service centers. These sectors can provide better quality products and/or services to their customers, taking into account employees’ desires and preferences in order to increase sector productivity. In this study, an employee shift scheduling problem in the service sector is discussed. In the problem, the aim is ...

Optimal shift scheduling with a global service level constraint

We study a shift scheduling problem for call centers with an overall service level objective. We prove a property of this problem, called multimodularity, that ensures that a local search algorithm terminates with a globally optimal solution. We report on computations we did with real call center data.

Staffing and Shift-Scheduling of Call Centers under Call Arrival Rate Uncertainty