Article

Modelling and simulation of a telephone call center

Authors:

Juta Pichitlamken,

Alexandre Deslauriers,

Pierre L'Ecuyer,

Athanassios N. AvramidisAuthors Info & Claims

WSC '03: Proceedings of the 35th conference on Winter simulation: driving innovation

Pages 1805 - 1812

Published: 07 December 2003 Publication History

Get Access

Abstract

We consider a system with two types of traffic and two types of agents. Outbound calls are served only by blend agents, whereas inbound calls can be served by either inbound-only or blend agents. Our objective is to allocate a number of agents such that some service requirement is satisfied. We have taken two approaches in analyzing this staffing problem: We developed a simulation model of the call center, which allows us to do a what-if analysis, as well as continuous-time Markov chain (CTMC) queueing models, which provide approximations of system performance measures. We describe the simulation model in this paper.

References

[1]

Avramidis, A. N., A. Deslauriers, and P. L'Ecuyer. 2003. Modeling daily arrivals to a telephone call center. Technical report, GERAD and DIRO, University of Montreal. Submitted for publication.

Google Scholar

[2]

Brown, L., N. Gans, A. Mandelbaum, A. Sakov, H. Shen, S. Zeltyn, and L. Zhao. 2002, November. Statistical analysis of a telephone call center: A queueing-science perspective. Technical report, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. Preprint.

Google Scholar

[3]

Deslauriers, A. 2003. Modélisation et simulation d'un centre d'appels téléphoniques dans un environnement mixte. Master's thesis, Dept. Computer Science and Operations Research, University of Montreal, Montreal, Canada.

Google Scholar

[4]

Deslauriers, A., J. Pichitlamken, P. L'Ecuyer, and A. N. Avramidis. 2003. Markov chain models of a telephone call center in blend mode. Technical report, GERAD and DIRO, University of Montreal. Preprint.

Google Scholar

[5]

Gans, N., G. Koole, and A. Mandelbaum. 2002. Telephone call centers: Tutorial, review, and research prospects. Manufacturing and Service Operations Management. To appear.

Digital Library

Google Scholar

[6]

Jongbloed, G., and G. Koole. 2001. Managing uncertainty in call centers using Poisson mixtures. Applied Stochastic Models in Business and Industry 17:307--318.

Crossref

Google Scholar

[7]

Koole, G., and A. Mandelbaum. 2002. Queueing models of call centers: An introduction. Annals of Operations Research 113:41--59.

Crossref

Google Scholar

[8]

Leydold, J., and W. Hörmann. 2002. UNURAN---a library for universal non-uniform random number generators. Available at <http://statistik.wu-wien.ac.at/unuran>.

Google Scholar

[9]

Ross, S. M. 1997. Simulation. Second ed. Academic Press.

Google Scholar

[10]

Tanir, O., and R. J. Booth. 1999. Call center simulation in Bell Canada. In Proceedings of the 1999 Winter Simulation Conference, ed. P. A. Farrington, H. B. Nemhard, D. T. Sturrock, and G. W. Evans, 1640--1647. Piscataway, New Jersey: IEEE Press. Available on line via <www.informs-cs.org>.

Digital Library

Google Scholar

Cited By

View all

L'Ecuyer PGustavsson KOlsson LJohansson BJain S(2018)Modeling bursts in the arrival process to an emergency call centerProceedings of the 2018 Winter Simulation Conference10.5555/3320516.3320589(525-536)Online publication date: 9-Dec-2018
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/3320516.3320589
Liston PByrne JKeogh OByrne P(2017)Beyond callsProceedings of the 2017 Winter Simulation Conference10.5555/3242181.3242513(1-12)Online publication date: 3-Dec-2017
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/3242181.3242513
Franzese LFioroni MBotter Rde Freitas Filho PDunkin AIngalls R(2009)Comparison of call center modelsWinter Simulation Conference10.5555/1995456.1995859(2963-2970)Online publication date: 13-Dec-2009
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/1995456.1995859
Show More Cited By

Modelling and simulation of a telephone call center
1. General and reference
  1. Cross-computing tools and techniques

Recommendations

Modeling Daily Arrivals to a Telephone Call Center

We develop stochastic models of time-dependent arrivals, with focus on the application to call centers. Our models reproduce three essential features of call center arrivals observed in recent empirical studies: a variance larger than the mean for the ...
Priority tandem queueing system with retrials and reservation of channels as a model of call center

A tandem queue consisting of two multi-server stations is analyzed.Retrials and impatience of customers are taken into account.Ergodicity condition is derived.Steady state distribution of the system states and performance measures are computed.Numerical ...
Call center operation model as a MAP/PH/N/R-N system with impatient customers

We analyze a multiserver queueing system with a finite buffer and impatient customers. The arrival customer flow is assumed to be Markovian. Service times of each server are phase-type distributed. If all servers are busy and a new arrival occurs, it ...

Comments

Please enable JavaScript to view thecomments powered by Disqus.

Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

WSC '03: Proceedings of the 35th conference on Winter simulation: driving innovation

December 2003

2094 pages

ISBN:0780381327

General Chair:
David Ferrin
Naperville, IL
,
Program Chair:
Douglas J. Morrice
The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX

Publisher

Winter Simulation Conference

Publication History

Published: 07 December 2003

Check for updates

Qualifiers

Article

Conference

WSC03

Sponsor:

IIE
INFORMS/CS
ASA
ACM
SIGSIM
IEEE/CS
NIST
(SCS)
IEEE/SMCS

WSC03: Winter Simulation Conference 2003

December 7 - 10, 2003

Louisiana, New Orleans

Acceptance Rates

WSC '03 Paper Acceptance Rate 128 of 189 submissions, 68%;

Overall Acceptance Rate 3,413 of 5,075 submissions, 67%

Other Metrics

View Article Metrics

Bibliometrics & Citations

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

7
Total Citations
View Citations
585
Total Downloads

Downloads (Last 12 months)1
Downloads (Last 6 weeks)0

Reflects downloads up to 15 Jan 2025

Other Metrics

View Author Metrics

Citations

Cited By

View all

L'Ecuyer PGustavsson KOlsson LJohansson BJain S(2018)Modeling bursts in the arrival process to an emergency call centerProceedings of the 2018 Winter Simulation Conference10.5555/3320516.3320589(525-536)Online publication date: 9-Dec-2018
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/3320516.3320589
Liston PByrne JKeogh OByrne P(2017)Beyond callsProceedings of the 2017 Winter Simulation Conference10.5555/3242181.3242513(1-12)Online publication date: 3-Dec-2017
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/3242181.3242513
Franzese LFioroni MBotter Rde Freitas Filho PDunkin AIngalls R(2009)Comparison of call center modelsWinter Simulation Conference10.5555/1995456.1995859(2963-2970)Online publication date: 13-Dec-2009
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/1995456.1995859
Jansen-Vullers MNetjes MReijers HStegeman M(2006)A redesign framework for call centersProceedings of the 4th international conference on Business Process Management10.1007/11841760_21(306-321)Online publication date: 5-Sep-2006
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/11841760_21
Takakuwa SOkada T(2005)Simulation analysis of inbound call center of a city-gas companyProceedings of the 37th conference on Winter simulation10.5555/1162708.1163062(2026-2033)Online publication date: 4-Dec-2005
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/1162708.1163062
Zamperini MFreimer M(2005)A simulation analysis of the vari-metric repairable inventory optimization procedure for the U.S. Coast GuardProceedings of the 37th conference on Winter simulation10.5555/1162708.1163002(1692-1698)Online publication date: 4-Dec-2005
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/1162708.1163002
Avramidis AL'Ecuyer P(2005)Modeling and simulation of call centersProceedings of the 37th conference on Winter simulation10.5555/1162708.1162738(144-152)Online publication date: 4-Dec-2005
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/1162708.1162738

View Options

Login options

Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution to get full access on this article.

Cited By

Recommendations

Modeling Daily Arrivals to a Telephone Call Center

Priority tandem queueing system with retrials and reservation of channels as a model of call center

Call center operation model as a MAP/PH/N/R-N system with impatient customers