Each student will do a class project, which will culminate in both a written report, due at the end of the term, and an oral presentation. The emphasis will be on both original insight and effective communication.

Students have a wide latitude in the choice of the project. It should be new work, not based on a project for a previous course. Each student should turn in a brief (on one-page) description of the intended project in class on October 12. It would be good to informally discuss candidate projects with me before that time.

Candidate Projects

1. Read and critically discuss a recent research paper (or papers) on contact centers. The report should summarize the paper, but it should go beyond that. The critical discussion could involve consulting related papers, performing a simulation experiment or doing new mathematical analysis. For example, Assaf Zeevi has recently written two interesting papers:
   • J. M. Harrison and A. Zeevi, A Method for Staffing Large Call Centers Based on Stochastic Fluid Models. Available from: Assaf Zeevi

   • A. Bassamboo, J. M. Harrison and A. Zeevi, Design and Control of a Large Call Center: Asymptotic Analysis of an LP-Based Method. Available from: Assaf Zeevi

2. Locate and investigate an operating contact center.

3. Do a statistical analysis of contact-center data. For example, see Avi Mandelbaum's bank call-center data.

4. Do a simulation study, e.g., of alternative routing strategies for skill-based routing. For example, it may be possible to work with the simulation used in the paper A Staffing Algorithm for Call Centers with Skill-Based Routing written by Rodney Wallace and the instructor.

5. Investigate contact centers in a particular industry, such as banking and financial services.

6. Investigate human factors in contact centers.

7. Investigate models to analyze customer impatience in invisible queues. For example see Avi Mandelbaum's papers:

   • A. Mandelbaum and N. Shimkin, A model for rational abandonments from invisible queues. Queueing Systems 36 (2000) 141-173.

   • E. Zohar, A. Mandelbaum and N. Shimkin, Adaptive behavior of impatient customers in tele-queues: theory and empirical support. Management Science 48 (2002) 566-583.

8. Survey mathematical programming approaches to agent scheduling.

9. Investigate special problems in call centers for emergency services (911 call centers). For example, see Andrew Ross's 911 links.

10. Investigate alternative ways to do demand forecasting.

11. Investigate methods to do real-time prediction and control of congestion in contact centers. For example, see my papers:

    • N. G. Duffield and WW, Control and Recovery from Rare Congestion Events in a Large Multi-Server System. Queueing Systems 26 (1997) 69-104 [published PDF].

    • Predicting Queueing Delays. Management Science 45 (6) (1999) 870-888. [published PDF]

    • Dynamic Staffing in a Telephone Call Center Aiming to Immediately Answer All Calls. Operations Research Letters 24 (1999) 205-212. [PostScript] [PDF]

12. Investigate ways to approximately characterize the variability of non-Poisson stationary arrival (point) processes. For example, see my papers:

    • Approximating a Point Process by a Renewal Process: The View Through a Queue, An Indirect Approach. Management Science 27 (6) (1981) 619-636.

    • Approximating a Point Process by a Renewal Process: Two Basic Methods. Operations Research 30 (1) (1982) 125-147.

    • Queue Tests for Renewal Processes. Operations Research Letters 2 (1983) 7-12.

    • K. Sriram and WW, Characterizing Superposition Arrival Processes in Packet Multiplexers for Voice and Data. IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications, SAC-4 (6) (1986) 833-846.

    • K. W. Fendick and WW, Measurements and Approximations to Describe the Offered Traffic and Predict the Average Workload in a Single-Server Queue. Proceedings of the IEEE, 77 (1) (1989) 171-194. (Reprinted in Stochastic Analysis of Computer and Communication Systems (ed. H. Takagi), North-Holland, Amsterdam, 1990, pp. 3-56.) [published PDF]

    • K. W. Fendick, V. R. Saksena and WW, Dependence in Packet Queues. IEEE Transactions on Communications, vol. 37, No. 11, 1989, pp. 1173-1183. [published PDF]

13. Investigate ways to treat time-dependent arrival processes in contact centers. For example, see my papers:
    • O. B. Jennings, A. Mandelbaum, W. A. Massey and WW, Server Staffing to Meet Time-Varying Demand. Management Science, 42 (10) (1996) 1383-1394 [PostScript] [PDF] [published PDF].

    • W. A. Massey, G. A. Parker and WW, Estimating the Parameters of a Nonhomogeneous Poisson Process with Linear Rate. Telecommunication Systems 5 (1996) 361-388 [PostScript] [PDF].

    • W. A. Massey and WW, Peak Congestion in Multi-Server Service Systems with Slowly Varying Arrival Rates. Queueing Systems 25 (1997) 157-172 [PDF] [published PDF].

14. Investigate models for multimedia in contact centers. For example, see my paper:

    • Using Different Reponse-Time Requirements to Smooth Time-Varying Demand for Service. Operations Research Letters 24 (1-2) (1999) 1-10 [PostScript] [PDF].

15. Investigate customer retrials.

16. Investigate models for hiring and training of customer service representatives.