274,296 research outputs found
Correspondence from M. Call
No full textCorrespondence from M. Call regarding absent soldiers from Lincoln Count
Simulation-based optimization of agent scheduling in multiskill call centers.
No full textWe examine and compare simulation-based algorithms for solvingthe agent scheduling problem in a multiskill call center.This problem consists in minimizing the total costs of agents underconstraints on the expected service level per call type,per period, and aggregated.We propose a solution approach that combines simulation withinteger or linear programming, with cut generation.In our numerical experiments with realistic problem instances,this approach performs better than all other methods proposedpreviously for this problem.We also show that the two-step approach, which is the standard methodfor solving this problem, sometimes yield solutions that arehighly suboptimal and inferior to those obtained by our proposed method.<br/
Modeling and simulation of call centers.
No full textIn this review, we introduce key notions and describe the decision problems commonly encountered in call center management. Main themes are the central role of uncertainty throughout the decision hierarchy and the many operational complexities and relationships between decisions. We make connections to analytical models in the literature, emphasizing insights gained and model limitations.The high operational complexity and the prevalent uncertainty suggest that simulation modeling and simulation-based decision-making could have a central role in the management of call centers. We formulate some common decision problems and point to recently developed simulation-based solution techniques. We review recent work that supports modeling the primitive inputs to a call center and highlight call center modeling difficulties
Authoring a Web‐enhanced interface for a new language‐learning environment
No full textThis paper presents conceptual considerations underpinning a design process set up to develop an applicable and usable interface as well as defining parameters for a new and versatile Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) environment. Based on a multidisciplinary expertise combining Human Computer Interaction (HCI), Web‐based Java programming, CALL authoring and language teaching expertise, it strives to generate new CALL‐enhanced curriculum developments in language learning. The originality of the approach rests on its design rationale established on the strength of previously identified student requirements and authoring needs identifying inherent design weaknesses and interactive limitations of existing hypermedia CALL applications (Hémard, 1998). At the student level, the emphasis is placed on three important design decisions related to the design of the interface, student interaction and usability. Thus, particular attention is given to design considerations focusing on the need to (a) develop a readily recognizable, professionally robust and intuitive interface, (b) provide a student‐controlled navigational space based on a mixed learning environment approach, and (c) promote a flexible, network‐based, access mode reconciling classroom with open access exploitations. At the author level, design considerations are essentially orientated towards adaptability and flexibility with the integration of authoring facilities, requiring no specific authoring skills, to cater for and support the need for a flexible approach adaptable to specific language‐learning environments. This paper elaborates on these conceptual considerations within the design process with particular emphasis on the adopted principled methodology and resulting design decisions and solutions
A connection-level call admission control using genetic algorithm for MultiClass multimedia services in wireless networks
No full textCall admission control in a wireless cell in a personal communication system (PCS) can be modeled as an M/M/C/C queuing system with m classes of users. Semi-Markov Decision Process (SMDP) can be used to optimize channel utilization with upper bounds on handoff blocking probabilities as Quality of Service constraints. However, this method is too time-consuming and therefore it fails when state space and action space are large. In this paper, we apply a genetic algorithm approach to address the situation when the SMDP approach fails. We code call admission control decisions as binary strings, where a value of “1” in the position i (i=1,…m) of a decision string stands for the decision of accepting a call in class-i; a value of “0” in the position i of the decision string stands for the decision of rejecting a call in class-i. The coded binary strings are feed into the genetic algorithm, and the resulting binary strings are founded to be near optimal call admission control decisions. Simulation results from the genetic algorithm are compared with the optimal solutions obtained from linear programming for the SMDP approach. The results reveal that the genetic algorithm approximates the optimal approach very well with less complexity
Optimizing daily agent scheduling in a multiskill call center
No full textWe examine and compare simulation-based algorithms for solving the agent scheduling problem in a multiskill call center. This problem consists in minimizing the total costs of agents under constraints on the expected service level per call type, per period, and aggregated. We propose a solution approach that combines simulation with integer or linear programming, with cut generation. In our numerical experiments with realistic problem instances, this approach performs better than all other methods proposed previously for this problem. We also show that the two-step approach, which is the standard method for solving this problem, sometimes yield solutions that are highly suboptimal and inferior to those obtained by our proposed method.<br/
Statistical Analysis of a Telephone Call Center: A Queueing-Science Perspective
No full textA call center is a service network in which agents provide telephone-based services. Customers that seek these services are delayed in tele-queues. This paper summarizes an analysis of a unique record of call center operations. The data comprise a complete operational history of a small banking call center, call by call, over a full year. Taking the perspective of queueing theory, we decompose the service process into three fundamental components: arrivals, customer abandonment behavior and service durations. Each component involves different basic mathematical structures and requires a different style of statistical analysis. Some of the key empirical results are sketched, along with descriptions of the varied techniques required. Several statistical techniques are developed for analysis of the basic components. One of these is a test that a point process is a Poisson process. Another involves estimation of the mean function in a nonparametric regression with lognormal errors. A new graphical technique is introduced for nonparametric hazard rate estimation with censored data. Models are developed and implemented for forecasting of Poisson arrival rates. We then survey how the characteristics deduced from the statistical analyses form the building blocks for theoretically interesting and practically useful mathematical models for call center operations. Key Words: call centers, queueing theory, lognormal distribution, inhomogeneous Poisson process, censored data, human patience, prediction of Poisson rates, Khintchine-Pollaczek formula, service times, arrival rate, abandonment rate, multiserver queues.
Effective Call Center Management: Evidence from Financial Services
No full textCall centers are quickly becoming the major point of contact for serving customers and generating new revenue in a variety of industries. No where is this growth in the importance of call centers more apparent than in the financial services industry. This paper presents the results of a survey of the management of call center operations at major financial service firms. The results clearly indicate the importance of human resource management practices and technology in creating high-performance call center environments.
THE LOCATION BEHAVIOR OF CALL CENTRE FIRMS IN TURKEY
No full textAdvances in information and communication technologies bring along changes in working and employment conditions. Automationed work is moved to distant areas and businesses get elaborate, far from the center and network-based. Another change similar to the disintegration of production process is also seen in services sector. While jobs to develop technologies are left to the developed regions, routine and demanding jobs are transferred to peripheries. This situation brings about a centre-periphery division in structuring employment. One of the businesses that have emerged in this process is call centers. Firms, operating in various sectors, obtain call center service from outsource firms.Today, call centers are mostly located in less developed regions. While call centers first originated in developed regions, due to the increased costs in these regions, lots of firms have made their call service investments in less developed regions. Labor-intensive call centers are regarded as a solution to the unemployment in less developed regions. Within this framework, cities in Turkey, were evaluated according to location factors that call center firms take into account in this paper. The second part, the discussions in the literature are presented. Factors that become effective location decision of call centre firms were cited. In the third part, cities in Turkey, were evaluated according to location factors that call center firms take into account. Cities that were suitable for call center investment has been determined. In point of view of employees in call centers located in five cities in less developed and developed regions differences was determined by ANOVA and correspondence analysis. In the result, suggestions have been offered for location decision of call center based on statistical factors and employees' point of view Keywords:labour market, call centre, Turkey, location factors
Precarious Labour in Portuguese Call Centres: An Anthropological Study
No full textThis thesis explores the themes of alienation and exploitation within the Portuguese call centre sector by focusing on the nature of value-creation in the organisation of labour, the effects this regime has on workers’ consciousness and agency, and how these effects are expressed in terms of class, gender and age. These questions are examined within the broader political and economic context.
In recent years the ‘call centre domain’ in Portugal has been transformed into the main symbol of precariedade laboral (labour precariousness). The categories of trabalho precário (precarious labour), trabalhador precário (precarious worker) and precariedade laboral (labour precariousness) have recently entered into everyday language in Portugal. They are used by politicians and journalists as well as social movements and citizens as a way of protesting against the growing insecurity, contingency and vulnerability of formal wage employment as is found, for instance, in the increase of ‘atypical forms of employment’ such as temporary agency work. Call centres have been described as ‘electronic sweatshops’ because of such characteristics as repetitive tasks, high turnover, stress and burnout, psychological aggression from ‘angry’ customers, low autonomy in work tasks and automatism (scripting), leading to the stereotype of call centre workers as ‘human answering machines’.
My research argues that, in the call centre labour regime workers are subjected to management by tight surveillance which robs humans of their defining characteristics of creative/symbolic thinking and complex communication and language. This management also imposes a gendered division of labour which separates men working in technical support help lines from women working in commercial help lines. The dispossession of call centre operators from what they do comes both from the gap between their expectations of and aspirations to social mobility, which were inculcated through their circles of socialization (family, state, school), and the feeling of ‘falling from grace’ after finishing their college degrees and having to enter into call centre
work. This is a form of work which is not only socially perceived as unskilled, inferior and lacking career options, but most importantly as a form of work in which humans are disguised as robots. I conclude by situating my main findings within the anthropological and sociological scholarship related to the nature of value-creation in the capitalist labour process, gender commodification and the subjective experience of dispossession, downward class mobility and stigma
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