IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/inm/oropre/v60y2012i6p1551-1564.html

Stabilizing Customer Abandonment in Many-Server Queues with Time-Varying Arrivals

Author

Listed:
  • Yunan Liu

    (Department of Industrial Engineering, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina 27695)

  • Ward Whitt

    (Department of Industrial Engineering and Operations Research, Columbia University, New York, New York 10027)

Abstract

An algorithm is developed to determine time-dependent staffing levels to stabilize the time-dependent abandonment probabilities and expected delays at positive target values in the M t / GI / s t + GI many-server queueing model, which has a nonhomogeneous Poisson arrival process (the M t ), has general service times (the first GI ), and allows customer abandonment according to a general patience distribution (the + GI ). New offered-load and modified-offered-load approximations involving infinite-server models are developed for that purpose. Simulations show that the approximations are effective. A many-server heavy-traffic limit in the efficiency-driven regime shows that (i) the proposed approximations achieve the goal asymptotically as the scale increases, and (ii) it is not possible to simultaneously stabilize the mean queue length in the same asymptotic regime.

Suggested Citation

  • Yunan Liu & Ward Whitt, 2012. "Stabilizing Customer Abandonment in Many-Server Queues with Time-Varying Arrivals," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 60(6), pages 1551-1564, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:inm:oropre:v:60:y:2012:i:6:p:1551-1564
    DOI: 10.1287/opre.1120.1104
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/opre.1120.1104
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1287/opre.1120.1104?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jimmie L. Davis & William A. Massey & Ward Whitt, 1995. "Sensitivity to the Service-Time Distribution in the Nonstationary Erlang Loss Model," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 41(6), pages 1107-1116, June.
    2. Ward Whitt, 2005. "Engineering Solution of a Basic Call-Center Model," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 51(2), pages 221-235, February.
    3. Zohar Feldman & Avishai Mandelbaum & William A. Massey & Ward Whitt, 2008. "Staffing of Time-Varying Queues to Achieve Time-Stable Performance," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 54(2), pages 324-338, February.
    4. Ward Whitt, 2006. "Fluid Models for Multiserver Queues with Abandonments," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 54(1), pages 37-54, February.
    5. Otis B. Jennings & Avishai Mandelbaum & William A. Massey & Ward Whitt, 1996. "Server Staffing to Meet Time-Varying Demand," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 42(10), pages 1383-1394, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Defraeye, Mieke & Van Nieuwenhuyse, Inneke, 2016. "Staffing and scheduling under nonstationary demand for service: A literature review," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 4-25.
    2. Niyirora, Jerome & Zhuang, Jun, 2017. "Fluid approximations and control of queues in emergency departments," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 261(3), pages 1110-1124.
    3. Xi Chen & Dave Worthington, 2017. "Staffing of time-varying queues using a geometric discrete time modelling approach," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 252(1), pages 63-84, May.
    4. Ran Liu & Xiaolan Xie, 2018. "Physician Staffing for Emergency Departments with Time-Varying Demand," INFORMS Journal on Computing, INFORMS, vol. 30(3), pages 588-607, August.
    5. Samantha L. Zimmerman & Alexander R. Rutherford & Alexa Waall & Monica Norena & Peter Dodek, 2023. "A queuing model for ventilator capacity management during the COVID-19 pandemic," Health Care Management Science, Springer, vol. 26(2), pages 200-216, June.
    6. Opher Baron & Joseph Milner, 2009. "Staffing to Maximize Profit for Call Centers with Alternate Service-Level Agreements," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 57(3), pages 685-700, June.
    7. Liu, Yunan & Whitt, Ward, 2017. "Stabilizing performance in a service system with time-varying arrivals and customer feedback," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 256(2), pages 473-486.
    8. Achal Bassamboo & J. Michael Harrison & Assaf Zeevi, 2006. "Design and Control of a Large Call Center: Asymptotic Analysis of an LP-Based Method," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 54(3), pages 419-435, June.
    9. Rouba Ibrahim & Mor Armony & Achal Bassamboo, 2017. "Does the Past Predict the Future? The Case of Delay Announcements in Service Systems," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(6), pages 1762-1780, June.
    10. Rouba Ibrahim & Ward Whitt, 2011. "Wait-Time Predictors for Customer Service Systems with Time-Varying Demand and Capacity," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 59(5), pages 1106-1118, October.
    11. Ward Whitt, 1999. "Partitioning Customers into Service Groups," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 45(11), pages 1579-1592, November.
    12. Tkachenko Andrey, 2013. "Multichannel queuing systems with balking and regenerative input fl ow," HSE Working papers WP BRP 14/STI/2013, National Research University Higher School of Economics.
    13. Legros, Benjamin & Fransoo, Jan C., 2023. "Admission and pricing optimization of on-street parking with delivery bays," Other publications TiSEM 6d41ee5c-27dc-4d34-aff1-4, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    14. Zhi Pei & Xu Dai & Tianzong Yu & Lu Zhao & Qiao-Chu He, 2022. "Dynamic Rebalancing Strategy in Free-Float Bicycle Sharing Systems: Orbit Queues and Two-Sided Matching," Service Science, INFORMS, vol. 14(1), pages 35-59, March.
    15. Merve Bodur & James R. Luedtke, 2017. "Mixed-Integer Rounding Enhanced Benders Decomposition for Multiclass Service-System Staffing and Scheduling with Arrival Rate Uncertainty," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(7), pages 2073-2091, July.
    16. Guodong Pang & Ward Whitt, 2012. "The Impact of Dependent Service Times on Large-Scale Service Systems," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 14(2), pages 262-278, April.
    17. Mor Armony & Erica Plambeck & Sridhar Seshadri, 2009. "Sensitivity of Optimal Capacity to Customer Impatience in an Unobservable M/M/S Queue (Why You Shouldn't Shout at the DMV)," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 11(1), pages 19-32, June.
    18. Yongkyu Cho & Young Myoung Ko, 2020. "Stabilizing the virtual response time in single-server processor sharing queues with slowly time-varying arrival rates," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 293(1), pages 27-55, October.
    19. Ward Whitt, 2006. "Staffing a Call Center with Uncertain Arrival Rate and Absenteeism," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 15(1), pages 88-102, March.
    20. Rouba Ibrahim & Ward Whitt, 2009. "Real-Time Delay Estimation in Overloaded Multiserver Queues with Abandonments," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 55(10), pages 1729-1742, October.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:inm:oropre:v:60:y:2012:i:6:p:1551-1564. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Asher (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/inforea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.