Paper Info
Title
A Queueing Theoretic Approach To Set Staffing Levels In Time-Dependent Dual-Class Service Systems
Abstract
This article addresses the optimal staffing problem for a nonpreemptive priority queue with two customer classes and a time-dependent arrival rate. The problem is related to several important service settings such as call centers and emergency departments where the customers are grouped into two classes of high priority and low priority, and the services are typically evaluated according to the proportion of customers who are responded to within targeted response times. To date, only approximation methods have been explored to generate staffing requirements for time-dependent dual-class services, but we propose a tractable numerical approach to evaluate system behavior and generate safe minimum staffing levels using mixed discrete-continuous time Markov chains (MDCTMCs). Our approach is delicate in that it accounts for the behavior of the system under a number of different rules that may be imposed on staff if they are busy when due to leave and involves explicitly calculating delay distributions for two customer classes. Ultimately, we embed our methodology in a proposed extension of the Euler method, coined Euler Pri, that can cope with two customer classes, and use it to recommend staffing levels for the Welsh Ambulance Service Trust (WAST).
Year
DOI
Venue
2017
10.1111/deci.12236
DECISION SCIENCES
Field
DocType
Volume
Staffing,Euler method,Computer science,Markov chain,Euler's formula,Priority queue,Queueing theory,Numerical analysis,Operations management,Welsh
Journal
48
Issue
ISSN
Citations 
4
0011-7315
0
PageRank 
References 
Authors
0.34
13
4
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Julie Leanne Vile141.47
Jonathan Gillard2256.99
Paul R. Harper318818.44
Vincent A. Knight43710.00