Principles on the benefits of manufacturing process flexibility
Management Science
Designing a Call Center with Impatient Customers
Manufacturing & Service Operations Management
Analysis of Queueing Systems with Synchronous Single Vacation for Some Servers
Queueing Systems: Theory and Applications
Commissioned Paper: Telephone Call Centers: Tutorial, Review, and Research Prospects
Manufacturing & Service Operations Management
Dimensioning Large Call Centers
Operations Research
Queueing Systems: Theory and Applications
Call Centers with Impatient Customers: Many-Server Asymptotics of the M/M/n + G Queue
Queueing Systems: Theory and Applications
Analysis of customers' impatience in queues with server vacations
Queueing Systems: Theory and Applications
A Staffing Algorithm for Call Centers with Skill-Based Routing
Manufacturing & Service Operations Management
Fluid Models for Multiserver Queues with Abandonments
Operations Research
Heavy-traffic limits for many-server queues with service interruptions
Queueing Systems: Theory and Applications
Staffing of Time-Varying Queues to Achieve Time-Stable Performance
Management Science
The Impact of Delay Announcements in Many-Server Queues with Abandonment
Operations Research
Responding to Unexpected Overloads in Large-Scale Service Systems
Management Science
Heavy-traffic limits for many-server queues with service interruptions
Queueing Systems: Theory and Applications
Fluid models of many-server queues with abandonment
Queueing Systems: Theory and Applications
Two-parameter heavy-traffic limits for infinite-server queues with dependent service times
Queueing Systems: Theory and Applications
Mathematics of Operations Research
Maintenance of infinite-server service systems subjected to random shocks
Computers and Industrial Engineering
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Large-scale service systems, where many servers respond to high demand, are appealing because they can provide great economy of scale, producing a high quality of service with high efficiency. Customer waiting times can be short, with a majority of customers served immediately upon arrival, while server utilizations remain close to 100%. However, we show that this confluence of quality and efficiency is not achieved without risk, because there can be severe congestion if the system does not operate as planned. In particular, we show that the large scale makes the system more vulnerable to service interruptions when (i) most customers remain waiting until they can be served, and (ii) when many servers are unable to function during the interruption, as may occur with a system-wide computer failure. Increasing scale leads to higher server utilizations, which in turn leads to longer recovery times from service interruptions and worse performance during such events. We quantify the impact of service interruptions with increasing scale by introducing and analyzing approximating deterministic fluid models. We also show that these fluid models can be obtained from many-server heavy-traffic limits.