An approximation manpower planning model for after-sales field service support

Authors:
Qunhong Tang;George R. Wilson;Eugene Perevalov
Affiliations:
Industrial and Systems Engineering Department, Lehigh University, 200 West Packer Avenue, PA 18015, USA;Industrial and Systems Engineering Department, Lehigh University, 200 West Packer Avenue, PA 18015, USA;Industrial and Systems Engineering Department, Lehigh University, 200 West Packer Avenue, PA 18015, USA
Venue:
Computers and Operations Research
Year:
2008

Citing 4
Cited 1

Fundamentals of queueing theory (2nd ed.).

Fundamentals of queueing theory (2nd ed.).
Introduction to operations research, 4th ed.

Introduction to operations research, 4th ed.
Application of the Diffusion Approximation to Queueing Networks I: Equilibrium Queue Distributions

Journal of the ACM (JACM)
Simulation Modeling and Analysis

Simulation Modeling and Analysis

A simulation-based decision support system for industrial field service network planning

Simulation

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Abstract

Manpower planning is a key part of after-sales field service support with a service guarantee. Accurate field travel distance approximation presents a good opportunity to lower the manpower level. By explicitly considering the uncertainties, a state-dependent travel distance approximation model is presented and used to find the optimized manpower solution. A simulation model is developed to study the relationship between staffing level, travel distance, and percentage of customers serviced on time. Numerical results show that the proposed travel distance approximation model performs much better than the classical ''square root law'' and other models in the literature.