Development of a workforce management system for a customer hotline service

An integrated workforce management system was developed for a 24-h hotline service. It first applies either a regression model or simulation model to relate the target abandonment rates with the required hourly staffing level , which is then converted into the daily requirements of senior and junior officers by use of a mixed integer programming approach. The last phase inv olves extending Burns and Carter algorithm to schedule the monthly roster w ith emphasis on both employee equity and management specifications. Impleme ntation is under Microsoft Office 95 on a 586 PC. Comparison with the manua l schedule shows significant savings in time and a higher degree of constra int satisfaction. Scope and purpose With the booming mobile telephone business, a 24-h customer hotline service in a mobile communications company faced increasing challenges in scheduli ng its growing workforce to be distributed into eight daily shifts. The com plex constraints and goals set by the company demand a tailor-made workforc e management system where existing packages cannot be directly applied. Thi s paper reports on the development of a decision support system for the for ecasts of hourly demand calls, leading to the estimation of staffing requir ements and scheduling of the monthly roster. Fast rescheduling can be achie ved and more scheduling constraints are satisified. Useful management infor mation is generated to enable better understanding of the manpower supply a nd demand situations. The computerization process brings together the manag ement and interdisciplinary teams to realize the tradeoffs between various scheduling constraints, and possible modifications in anticpation of future changes. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.