A Field Service Support System Using the Computer Analysis of Networks of Queues

The Field Service (FS) Organization of many companies constitutes a vital Department playing an important role to their success. Field Service managers need some tools to analyse the impact of their decisions on customer service level, which must be as high as possible (at least 95%), and inventory cost, trying to reduce it to a minimum level (its ratio to the total FS revenue must be less than 10%). Such a tool is presented in this paper. We applied a closed queueing network model developed by Solberg, called CAN-Q (acronym for Computer Analysis of Networks of Queues). This model, although originally developed for modelling Flexible Manufacturing Systems, has been applied to the FS organization of a subsidiary of multinational computer company, in Greece, and it has proved to be very efficient from the computational point of view and constitutes a powerful tool for the FS managers, providing them with some useful performance measures. Its successful application gives rise to try some other queueing network models, available from the literature, in combination with various inventory control models to help FS managers solve their critical problems.