BRIGE: Capacity allocation for networks of queues

本次bridge奖的研究目标是在排队网络的建模框架内研究服务容量和服务质量之间的权衡。服务能力将通过人员配备水平来衡量，而服务质量将通过预期的客户延误来衡量。新的方法将在随机处理网络的背景下发展，这将与数值优化技术相结合。三个应用领域将为评估提议的方法提供测试平台：电话呼叫中心、医疗保健系统和劳动力管理。如果成功，这项研究的结果将有助于在当今一些竞争激烈的服务环境中提高业务流程的效率。由于服务人员的员额水平占许多大型服务系统所涉费用的很大一部分，因此在这方面系统地分配服务能力特别重要。流程管理和优化的标准软件使用模拟技术来分配服务能力，因此实际上只使用计算成本高的技术。提出的研究议程确定并利用可用于与仿真方法相结合分配服务容量的数学模型，这将有可能为服务系统带来更有效的容量分配规则。该研究项目将与一项综合计划相结合，以吸引来自弱势群体的高中生从事工程职业。这个计划的一个关键方面是开发一个计算机程序，在这个程序中，学生们被要求管理游乐园里的排队。

The research objective of this BRIGE award is to investigate the trade-off between service capacity and quality of service within the modeling framework of queueing networks. Service capacity will be measured by staffing levels, while quality of service will be measured by expected customer delays. New methodology will be developed in the context of stochastic processing networks, which will be combined with numerical optimization techniques. Three application areas will provide a testbed for the evaluation of the proposed methods: telephone call centers, health care systems, and workforce management.If successful, the results of this research will help improve the efficiency of business processes in some of today's competitive service environments. Since the staffing levels of service personnel constitute a significant portion of the costs involved in many large-scale service systems, systematic allocation of service capacity is particularly relevant in this context. Standard software for process management and optimization uses simulation techniques to allocate service capacity, and therefore essentially only computationally expensive techniques are used in practice. The proposed research agenda identifies and exploits mathematical models that can be used for allocating service capacity in combination with simulation methods, which will potentially lead to more efficient capacity allocation rules for service systems. The research project will be integrated with a comprehensive plan to attract high school students from underrepresented groups to careers in engineering. A key aspect of this plan is the development of a computer program in which students are challenged to manage queues in an amusement park.