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OM-2 Assignment 2 - Section E

Jack McKinnon at Delwarca Software wanted to improve the efficiency of its customer support call service. The Rapid ID program was implemented in November 2011 to allow customers to choose between an associate or senior associate for support. However, this led to increased wait times for senior associates, creating a bottleneck. Various data and models are presented analyzing customer wait times and labor costs under the previous and Rapid ID systems. It is recommended that Delwarca provide training to associates and senior associates to improve their problem-solving abilities so fewer calls are escalated to senior associates, reducing bottlenecks.

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Pallavi Gupta
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100% found this document useful (1 vote)
1K views6 pages

OM-2 Assignment 2 - Section E

Jack McKinnon at Delwarca Software wanted to improve the efficiency of its customer support call service. The Rapid ID program was implemented in November 2011 to allow customers to choose between an associate or senior associate for support. However, this led to increased wait times for senior associates, creating a bottleneck. Various data and models are presented analyzing customer wait times and labor costs under the previous and Rapid ID systems. It is recommended that Delwarca provide training to associates and senior associates to improve their problem-solving abilities so fewer calls are escalated to senior associates, reducing bottlenecks.

Uploaded by

Pallavi Gupta
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Summary:

In the Delwarca Software Remote Support Unit, Jack McKinnon


wanted to focus on improving the efficiency of its calling service in
Pre Rapid ID. Also, McKnnon improved its customer calling service
by Rapid ID. The delay in work to be performed by associates has
reduced. On the other hand, the bottleneck of work to be performed
by senior associates has increased to a great extent. This problem
is known to McKinnon and considerable information is available
about the Delwarca Company. However, improving the companys
process and solving its problems is a difficult task.
Client service is delivered by Delwarca Software in the following
four separate stages:
Software development
field support : formal visit to set-up the software
critical support service
Remote Support : time critical calling service

Pre-Rapid ID started calling customer to solve their problems.


Significant problems were observed through conversations with
customers and surveys. During waiting times, customers try to work
out their own tasks. The unsatisfied ones call for help. Customers
try to resolve their problems because the companys service is slow
due to inefficiencies.
In November 2011, Jack McKinnon began Rapid ID. It operated
differently from Pre-rapid ID. Customers were given an option to
contact either an associate or a senior associate. In the first six
months, McKinnon was not satisfied with the result of Rapid ID.
Senior associates had the highest-performance in Rapid ID, which
made the customers even more dissatisfied then before the
development of Rapid ID. This created a bottleneck at the senior
associate level.

This report will focus on suggestions to explain customer


dissatisfaction.
It will show results of alternative solutions with tables to
compare and discuss.
It will give recommendations regarding efficient operation and
limitations with additional future work, such as data collection
and modelling.

Pre Rapid observations:

Operator Observations
Queue Time (minutes) 73 calls took between from 0
to 0.48 minutes
Queue Size Average queue size is 0.15
Ending the Queue Average number is 0.25
These observations show that the customer spends a lot of
time for waiting.

Director Associate
Queuing Time(minutes) The average time has
increased about 1.3 minutes.
Queue Size There is not a significant
difference between an
operator and a director.
End Queuing Average number is 0.32
This shows that clients spend huge time for waiting.

Associates
Queue Time (minutes) Average time is 3.69.
Queue Size The maximum time has been
reduced by one minute.
End Queuing The maximum number also is
significantly higher in Rapid ID.

Senior Associates
Queue Time (minutes) The queue time for a senior
associate is longer than the
other waiting time in Rapid ID.
Queue Size The average size of a senior
associates queue is 1.52
End Queuing The maximum number is also
lower than the maximum
number of an associate.

Total Labour cost (every year):

Position Parameter Amount


Associate Salary Between $40,000*12
$66,000*12 (about
$480,000
$792,000)
Benefits & Between$40,000*12*
Overheads 26%
$66,000*12*26%
(about $124,800
$205,920)
Overtime working Between
benefits $40,000*4*10%
$66,000*4*10%
(about $16,000
$26,400)
Senior associate Salary Between $70,000*7
$90,000*7 (about
$490,000
$630,000)
Benefits & Between
Overheads $70,000*7*23%
$90,000*7*23%
(about $112,700
$144,900)
Overtime working Between
benefits $70,000*4*15%
$90,000*4*15%
(about $42,000
$54,000)
Whole labour cost is minimum $1,206,700 - $1,768,820

Improved model:

The model can be improved a wide range of methods, which means


that utilisation and queue time can be reduced by training and
rescheduling the batch. The alternative model should be improved
by training associates and senior associates in Rapid ID. There is a
significant reason for this choice:

Trained workers can work more efficiently than workers who have
not been trained in simple tasks.

In a formula of queue theory analysis, s W q , if the service


completed time of senior associates increases, the number of calls(
), Wq will decrease in Rapid ID.

In Rapid ID, although the waiting time for an associate has


decreased, the waiting time for a senior associate has increased,
because many associates lack ability. This means that associates
cannot solve a wide range of problems. Consequently, those
problems will move on to a senior associate

Associate and senior associates complete calls in significantly


different amounts of time, which means that there are a few
benefits that will reduce bottlenecks. Rescheduling can produce
high quality solutions and more efficiency in the process

Proposed plan:

All the workers are on work, the average working time using in the
inter-arrival time distribution (exponential distribution) in each time
slot from 8:00 am to 8:00 pm,
All senior associates can be educated 4 hours each week.
Training programming of senior associates is processed for three
months

The service completed time will be decreased by 30%.

Senior Associate Service time

Senior Associate Service time (Original


model/improved model)
Lower Mode Upper
limits limits
Requesting senior associate 13 / 9.1 18 / 41.2 /
from operator 12.6 28.8
Direct to senior associate from 12 / 8.4 23 / 37.2 /
director associate 16.1 26.0
Forward to senior associate 11 / 7.7 30 / 21 31.2 /
from associate 21.8

At associate level:

The number of calls completed by associates increased from 20%


to 84.8%, which means that only 15.2% will be passed on to a
senior associate.
The training programming of associates will last for three months.
Forwarded to Senior Associate ( 1.976 minutes)
Directed to Senior Associate (4.56 minutes)
Requesting Senior Associate ( 5.322 minutes) after an associate
was trained by the company, the average queuing time for a senior
associate decreased, because the trained associate solves a
significant number of problems.

Conclusion and Recommendation:

The basic model can be used to evaluate its calling service in the
Software Remote Support Unit. The model can be made based upon
the considerable information provided by McKinnon and upon
assumptions.
All three of the alternative models of training associates, training
senior associates, and rescheduling senior associates made
significant results based on assumptions. The expected result
almost appeared in the modelling. Therefore, it can be used by the
Delwarca Company to improve its performance. Of the three
alternative models, the programme of training senior associates has
remarkable results in reducing queue waiting times.
To improve the accurate model, managers should study human
capital resources, such as their degree, behaviour, preferences and
motivation. These will support improvements in efficiency and an
efficient calling service.

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