Call Center Scheduling: Federal Reserve Bank
Client: US Treasury-Federal Reserve Bank
Team: Morgan Brunz, Brittany McCluskey
Faculty advisor: Dr. Siems, Barr
Documents: Final report (Word), final presentation (PPT)
The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas has a call center that responds to customer requests to change from receiving checks in the mail to direct deposit. The center’s call volume varies throughout the month and day. They have hired 23 permanent employees, and on a daily basis, they hire a different amount of temporary employees. Our goal is to determine the number of temporary employees they should hire each day and those employees’ schedules. We seek to minimize cost and maximize customer service.
We use an integer-programming model to find the number of temporary employees and their schedules. The variables are the possible schedules. The equations state that the number of employees working per 15-minute time interval is equal to or greater than the number of employees needed. The number needed is obtained by using a waiting line system, which includes the service and arrival rates of calls per 15-minute time interval.
We use the mathematical programming language AMPL/CPLEX to model this integer-programming model. We enter a matrix that models the possible schedules, a right hand side indicating the number of employees needed per 15-minute time interval, a constraint that employees working must be equal to or great than employees needed, and an objective to minimize the number of employees. We ran the model 5 different times and drew conclusions about the solutions we were obtaining.
We find that when the 23 permanent employee schedules are not changed, then nine temporary employees are needed. If we change the schedules of the permanent employees, then we make the greatest improvement with only 25 total employees needed.