A Note on Profit Maximization and Monotonicity for Inbound Call Centers

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Koole, Ger; Pot, Auke
• 署名单位: Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
• 刊物名称: OPERATIONS RESEARCH
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0030-364X
• DOI: 10.1287/opre.1110.0990
• 发表日期: 2011
• 页码: 1304-1308
• 关键词: queuing-systems; optimization; capacity

摘要

We consider an inbound call center with a fixed reward per call and communication and agent costs. By controlling the number of lines and the number of agents, we can maximize the profit. Abandonments are included in our performance model. Monotonicity results for the maximization problem are obtained, which lead to an efficient optimization procedure. We give a counterexample to the concavity in the number of agents, which is equivalent to saying that the law of diminishing returns does not hold. Numerical results are given.