Customer support manpower planning of high tech support Problem Solving Project - Prepared by: center

Adel Abdel Masih Ahmed Elgenedy Ahmed Ismail Ahmed Yassin Mohamed Sabry

Agenda
Introduction Problem Definition Data collection Mathematical Model AMPL Code Estimation of minimum number of operators. Results Conclusion Q&A

Introduction
Project deals with the

human resources in the discipline of using linear programming to optimize manpower planning to make a cost effective business operation model. Business focused area: Manpower planning of high tech offshore center in Egypt. Center is providing 24x7 support to customers around the globe

Problem Definition
The high - tech customer support center in Egypt is providing

technical support for customers applications and database. The center is operating with several shifts as following:
Standard shifts during week working hours Odd shifts that are start afternoon and finish late night Odd mid night shifts that start late night and cross midnight

Standard shift duration is 9 hours while odd shifts duration is 8

hours. Engineers are allowed to take one or two hour(s) during the shift depending on the type of the shift , break can be taken after 3 hours from shift start time. Average time of ticket handling is 30 minutes

Problem Definition
Objective:

continue..

Center seeks to reduce operating costs by staffing its technical

engineers efficiently by identifying the minimum number of engineers needed to provide a satisfactory level of customer services with respect to quality and resolution time.

Data Collection
Operating Shifts:
#Shift Shift 1 Shift 2 Shift 3 Shift 4 Shift 5 Shift 6 Shift 7 Shift 8 Shift 9 Shift 10 Shift 11 Type Standard Standard Odd Odd Odd Odd Odd Odd- midnight Odd- midnight Odd- midnight Odd- midnight Start 9:00 10:00 12:00 13:00 14:00 15:00 16:00 22:00 23:00 0:00 1:00 End 18:00 19:00 20:00 21:00 22:00 23:00 0:00 6:00 7:00 8:00 9:00 Duration Hours 9 Hours 9 Hours 8 Hours 8 Hours 8 Hours 8 Hours 8 Hours 8 Hours 8 Hours 8 Hours 8 Break Duration Hour 1 Hour 1 Hour 1 Hour 1 Hour 1 Hour 1 Hour 1 Hours 2 Hours 2 Hours 2 Hour 2

Data Collection
From 0:00 1:00 2:00 3:00 4:00 5:00 6:00 7:00 8:00 9:00 10:00 11:00 To 1:00 2:00 3:00 4:00 5:00 6:00 7:00 8:00 9:00 10:00 11:00 12:00 Mean

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Average number of the incoming tickets per hour :

From 30 25 22 22 18 18 15 8 8 10 12 15 12:00 13:00 14:00 15:00 16:00 17:00 18:00 19:00 20:00 21:00 22:00 23:00 To 13:00 14:00 15:00 16:00 17:00 18:00 19:00 20:00 21:00 22:00 23:00 24:00:00 Mean 12 16 16 15 15 18 20 20 25 30 30 35

Data Collection
Shift Breaks:

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Engineers in Standard and Odd shifts allowed to take 1 hour

break while engineers working in Odd Midnight shifts allowed to take 2 hours break.
Break can be taken after 3 hours from shift starting time. For Standard and Odd shifts, break scheduled every one hour

(after 3 hours from shift starts) over a span of 4 hours

For Odd Midnight shifts, break scheduled every two hours

(after 3 hours from shift starts) over a span of 4 hours

Mathematical Model
Integer linear program Objective is to minimize the total number of engineers Satisfy the expected number of coming tickets Decision variables:
Xi : Number of engineers working in the shift i , i=1,2,3,4,..,11 Yij : Number of engineers in the shift i that are taking break j, j=1,2,3,4

Mathematical Model

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Objective is to minimize the total number of engineers while

satisfying the expected number of coming tickets in demand throughout all shifts as well as shift durations and breaks.
Objective function: Objective function is to minimize number of engineers needed per

shift.
Minimize Z =
x
i= 1 1 1 i

Mathematical Model
Constraints:
x1 c1 x1+ x1 c1 1

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x1+ x1 c1 1
x1+ x1+ x1 y1 c1 1 1 x1+ x1+ x1+ x1 y1 y 1 c1 1 1 1 x1+ x1+ x1+ x1+ x1 y1 y1 c1 1 1 1 x1+ x1+ x1+ x1+ x1+ x1 y1 y 1 y1 c1 1 1 1 1

y
j =1

i j

xi = 1 = 1 ,, 1 ,i ,1 . .

AMPL Code

set period; param c{period}; table cValues IN "ODBC" "ExcelEst2.xls":[period] IN, c; read table cValues; var x{j in 1..11}>=0, integer; var y{i in 1..11,j in 1..4}>=0,integer; minimize z: sum{j in 1..11}x[j]; subject to c1: x[1]>=c[9]; c2: x[1] +x[2]>=c[10]; c3: x[1] +x[2]>=c[11]; c4: x[1] +x[2] +x[3] -y[1,1]>=c[12]; c5: x[1] +x[2] +x[3] +x[4] -y[1,2] -y[2,1]>=c[13]; c6: x[1] +x[2] +x[3] +x[4] +x[5] -y[1,3] -y[2,2]>=c[14]; c7: x[1] +x[2] +x[3] +x[4] +x[5] +x[6]-y[1,4]-y[2,3]-y[3,1]>=c[15]; c8: x[1] +x[2] +x[3] +x[4] +x[5] +x[6] +x[7]-y[2,4]-y[3,2]-y[4,1]>=c[16]; ............ c35: y[5,1]+y[5,2]+y[5,3]+y[5,4]-x[5]=0;

option solver cplex; solve; display c,x,y>Case100_OP.out;

Estimation of minimum number of operators, Ci for period I:

Collected data indicate that the traffic of incoming calls during each one-

hour period can be reasonably represented by the multiple-server Poisson queuing model (M/M/c).
period 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 . 11 11 lambda 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 1 11 11 Ck 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 . 11 11

Results

Conclusion
From analysis done in the project via linear programming

analytical tools (AMPL and TORA) we can conclude that center need to operate with 170 technical engineer in order to provide reliable coverage for the 11 shifts considering the one or two hours break in the shift. Breakdown of engineers needed per shift and per every one hour break can be shown in the result part.
By using Integer Linear programming technique we are able

to efficiently staff center technical engineers and accordingly reduce the operating cost.

Questions