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Call-Center Labor Cross-Training: It’s a Small World After All

Department of Industrial Engineering and Management Sciences, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois 60208
Department of Industrial Engineering and Management Sciences, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois 60208
Industrial and Operations Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109
iravani{at}iems.northwestern.edu
bkolfal{at}iems.northwestern.edu
vanoyen{at}umich.edu

It is well known that flexibility can be created in manufacturing and service operations by using multipurpose production sources such as cross-trained labor, flexible machines, or flexible factories. We focus on flexible service centers, such as inbound call centers with cross-trained agents, and model them as parallel queueing systems with flexible servers. We propose a new approach to analyzing flexibility arising from the multifunctionality of sources of production. We create a work sharing (WS) network model for which its average shortest path length (APL) metric can predict the more effective of two alternative cross-training structures in terms of customer waiting times. We show that the APL metric of small world network (SWN) theory is one simple deterministic solution approach to the complex stochastic problem of designing effective workforce cross-training structures in call centers.

Key Words: cross-training; small world networks; average path length; call-center labor management; queueing; operational flexibility
History: Received: November 6, 2004;