1906. Setting period wise staffing levels simultaneously when demand is dynamic
Invited abstract in session TD-54: Stochastic models in service operations, stream Stochastic modelling.
Tuesday, 14:30-16:00Room: Liberty 1.08
Authors (first author is the speaker)
| 1. | Tim Weber
|
| Chair of Production Management, University of Mannheim | |
| 2. | Raik Stolletz
|
| Chair of Production Management, University of Mannheim |
Abstract
Staffing determines the number of employees that should be present in a given period given stochastic demand. The less servers (employees) are working in a given hour, the longer customers have to wait until service and the higher customer dissatisfaction. Thus, the goal is to minimize the number of servers, while still adhering to some service level constraint. This trade-off of personal costs and a certain service level is affected by time-dependent demand.
Prominent staffing methods, such as the Stationary Independent Period by Period (SIPP) approach determine staffing requirements for each period in isolation. However, a high demand in a certain period may affect the performance measures in the succeeding period. We propose a staffing method for an Mt/M/ct system that considers the performance over all periods and optimizes staffing levels simultaneously over all periods of the planning horizon. We integrate the Stationary Backlog Carryover (SBC) approach into a nonlinear optimization model.
A linearization of this model enables us to determine staffing levels efficiently. The numerical study analyzes the effectiveness of this approach. In comparison to the SIPP approach, we demonstrate the changes in the structure of the staffing levels for different realistic demand patterns.
Keywords
- Stochastic Models
- Service Operations
Status: accepted
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