M.A. Theses
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Browsing M.A. Theses by Subject "Call centers -- Management."
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Item A decision support system for workforce management in call centers(Thesis (M.A.)-Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in Social Sciences, 2006., 2006.) Gedikoğlu, Burak.; Erdem, Aslı.Shift design, workforce allocation and call allocation are the major problems in call center management. The aim of the call center manager is to allocate and dynamically update the workforce so that the incoming calls are answered in the shortest possible time, above certain service level measures. The software tools developed to aid decision making in these areas use models that are based on Erlang-C calculations. However, the strict assumptions of Erlang-C often lead to invaliddecisions. For this reason, especially at peak times during the day, dynamic updates in the applied design are inev itable. In this study, a framework for a decision supportsystem (DSS) is developed for designing the shifts and allocating the agent workforce to the shifts in a call center, so that target service levels are met. In theproposed system, shifts are designed by solving a linear optimization model. Using this solution as the input, a simulation model is developed to dynamically update theworkforce so that the minimum required service level is met at all times. The proposed DSS is applied to an existing call center system, alternative designs aregenerated and compared.Item A simulation based decision support system for workforce management in call centers(Thesis (M.A.) - Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in Social Sciences, 2011., 2011.) Başarır, Birgül.; Erdem, Aslı.Workforce Management is critical in the call centers where thousands of calls are handled by hundreds of agents everyday. In a call center, where the call arrival rates tend to flutuate during the day, the agent allocation plans are required to be planned flexible and the number of operating call center agents ought to be updated whenever needed, in order to keep the customer satisfaction level over a predefined level. Workforce plans are usually generated by the use of queuing models that are based on Erlang-C calculations. However, they have assumptions that oversimplify the real system and jeopardize the validation of the model. At this point, the simulation models, which do not have such restrictive assumptions, are becoming popular in calculating the required number of agents for each time period and measuring the performance of a given shift schedule. The combination of the advantages of simulation with a flexible and user-friendly decision support system environment provides more effective and efficient workforce planning and performance reporting in call centers. In this study, a simulation based decision support system, DSS is developed that runs on real time dta for one of the largest call centers in Turkey. The graphical user interfaces, GUIs are designed in accordance to the man-machine interaction consideration to increase the usability, functionality and effectiveness of the DSS.