OPERATIONS RESEARCH

STAFFING A CALL CENTER (CALIFORNIA CHILDRENS HOSPITAL CASE)

064 Rahul Deb 065 Rajesh Krishnan 067 Ravi John 070 Richa Tomar 074 Jayachandran S. 079 Shantanu Torvi 082 Shivani Zutshi 084 Shuchi Bhardwaj 085 Siddharth Khanna

THE CASE: ISSUE AT HAND

FAULTY HELP DESK & CUSTOMER CARE SYSTEM The current decentralized method of appointment registration is very confusing and has attracted numerous customer complaints. The only means to secure appointment or make a query is telephonic i.e. by individually contacting the concerned clinic or department Parents often do not know which clinic or department is best suited to treat their childs ailments Significant amount of time lost on calls being transferred from department to department Hospital does not publish the phone numbers of all concerned clinics or departments Negligible inter-departmental communication in the hospital. Patients are often misled and confused even after an interdepartmental referral is made

STEPS TAKEN BY THE MANAGEMENT

BUSINESS PROCESS RE-ENGINEERING It was understood that a centralized approach was needed to centralize processes and amalgamate departments from the customers point of view.

A dedicated call center was to be established which will deal with all calls pertaining to customer queries and appointment registration The expected working hours for the same would be from 7 AM 9 PM during weekdays only

For conducting a feasibility research, third party consultants M/s Creative Chaos Consultants were roped in to forecast daily call volumes

CONSULTANTS REPORT & ANALYSIS

DAILY CALL ANALYSIS - METHODOLOGY Since all calls would henceforth be made only to the call center (after its establishment), it was decided to record the total number of calls pertaining to queries and registrations received individually by all departments and clinics of the hospital:

Close observation of the operators working at the individual clinics and departments Determination of the number of calls operators process per hour All calls were to be diligently recorded Every call missed was not to be recorded All repeat calls due to confusion or lack of clarity were to be discounted

CONSULTANTS REPORT & ANALYSIS

DAILY CALL ANALYSIS - RESULTS The following conclusions were brought forward:

Call Analysis
100 80 60 40 20 0 85 70 40 95 80 35 10 Calls/Hour

Further analysis revealed that 20% of the calls were from the Spanish speaking population. An operator on an average is able to handle 6 calls per hour i.e. approx. 10 minutes per caller.

OPERATOR & WORK ANALYSIS (CONSTRAINTS)

SHIFT TIMINGS & HOURLY PAY (CONSTRAINTS)

Full Time Employee Shift Start Timings 7 AM 9 PM 9 AM 11 AM 11 AM 1 PM 1 PM 3 PM

Part Time Employee Shift Start Timings

3 PM 5 PM

5 PM 7 PM

HOURLY REMUNERATION (FULL TIME/PART TIME EMPLOYEES) UP TO 5 PM AFTER 5 PM $10 $12

PROBLEMS 1, 2 & 3
1. How many Spanish-speaking operators and how many English speaking operators does the hospital need to staff the call center during each 2-hour shift of the day in order to answer all calls? Please provide an integer number since half a human operator makes no sense.

2. Lenny needs to determine how many full-time employees who speak Spanish, full-time employees who speak English, and part- time employees he should hire to begin on each shift. Creative Chaos Consultants advise him that linear programming can be used to do this in such a way as to minimize operating costs while answering all calls. Formulate a linear programming model of this problem.

3. Obtain an optimal solution for the linear programming model formulated in part (b) to guide Lennys decision.

OBJECTIVE FUNCTION & LPP

MIN 40FE1+40FS1+40FE2+40FS2+40FE3+40FS3+20P5+20FE4+24FE4+20F S4+24FS4+24P5+24P6+24P6 SUBJECT TO 6FE1 >= 32 6FS1 >= 8 6FE2 >= 68 6FS2 >= 17 6FE3 + 6FE1 >=56 6FS1 + 6FS3 >=14 6FE2 + 6FE4 >=76 6FS2 + 6FS4 >=19 6FE3 + 6P5 >=64 6FS3 >= 16 6FE4 + 6P5 + 6P6 >=28 6FS4 >= 7 6P6 >= 8

OUR SOLUTION
Shift Timings 7 AM - 9 AM 9AM - 11 AM 11 AM - 1 PM 1 PM - 3 PM 3 PM - 5 PM 5 PM - 7 PM 7 PM - 9 PM
FE1 --> Full Time employees (English speaking) in the 1st shift FE2 --> Full Time employees (English speaking) in the 2nd shift FE3 --> Full Time employees (English speaking) in the 3rd shift FE4 --> Full Time employees (English speaking) in the 4th shift FS1 --> Full Time employees (Spanish speaking) in the 1st shift FS2 --> Full Time employees (Spanish speaking) in the 2nd shift FS3 --> Full Time employees (Spanish speaking) in the 3rd shift FS4 --> Full Time employees (Spanish speaking) in the 4th shift P5 -->Part Time Employess (English Speaking) in the 5th shift P6 -->Part Time Employess (English Speaking) in the 6th shift

Employees FE1 FE2 FE3 FE4 FS1 FS2 FS3 FS4 P5 P6 FE1 FE2 FE1+FE3 FE2+FE4 FE3 FE4

Shift Breakup FS1 FS2 FS1+FS3 FS4+FS2 FS3 FS4 P5 P5 + P6 P6

Hourly Pay $10 $10 $10 $10 $10 $12 $12

LINDO OUTPUT

PROBLEM 4

Because many full-time workers do not want to work late into the evening, Lenny can find only one qualified Englishspeaking operator willing to begin work at 1 P.M. Given this new constraint, how many full-time English-speaking operators, full-time Spanish- speaking operators, and part-time operators should Lenny hire for each shift to minimize operating costs while answering all calls?

OBJECTIVE FUNCTION & LPP

MIN 40FE1+40FS1+40FE2+40FS2+40FE3+40FS3+20P5+20FE4+24FE4+20F S4+24FS4+24P5+24P6+24P6 SUBJECT TO 6FE1 >= 32 6FS1 >= 8 6FE2 >= 68 6FS2 >= 17 6FE3 + 6FE1 >=56 6FS1 + 6FS3 >=14 6FE2 >=70 6FS2 + 6FS4 >=19 6FE3 + 6P5 >=64 6FS3 >= 16 6P5 + 6P6 >=22 6FS4 >= 7 6P6 >= 8

LINDO OUTPUT

PROBLEM 5

Lenny now has decided to investigate the option of hiring bilingual operators instead of monolingual operators. If all the operators are bilingual, how many operators should be working during each 2-hour shift to answer all phone calls?

OBJECTIVE FUNCTION & LPP

MIN 40FE1+40FS1+40FE2+40FS2+40FE3+40FS3+20P5+20FE4+24FE4+20F S4+24FS4+24P5+24P6+24P6 SUBJECT TO 6FE1 >= 40 6FE2 >= 85 6FE3 + 6FE1 >=70 6FE2 + 6FE4 >=95 6FE3 + 6P5 >= 80 6FE4 + 6P5 + 6P6 >=35 6P6 >= 10

LINDO OUTPUT