Process Design Consider the following three process designs to organize a call center with 12…

Process Design

Consider the following three process designs to organize a call center with 12 employees. The center handles calls for two customer types. Type 1 customers call with credit card-­-related questions and type 2 customers call with questions related to online account opening. On a busy day the call center receives 60 calls per hour from type 1 customers and 30 calls per hour from type 2 customers. It takes on average 2 minutes to service both kinds of calls.

Process design 1: 6 employees handle type 1 calls; the other 6 employees handle type 2 calls Process design 2: 8 employees handle type 1 calls; 4 employees type 2 calls

Process design 3: 12 persons (cross-­-trained) handle all calls

PD1. Which of the three process designs leads to the shortest and longest average waiting times for a random incoming request?

a. 1 is the shortest, 2 is the longest

b. 2 is the shortest, 1 is the longest

c. 3 is the shortest, 2 is thelongest

d. 2 is the shortest, 3 is the longest

e. 3 is the shortest, 1 is the longest

f. 1 is the shortest, 3 is the longest

g. 3 is the shortest, 1 and 2 are the same

h. Cannot be determined

i. None of the above

Answers

PD1.

ANSWER: e (3 is the shortest, 1 is the longest)