Abstract
We analyze a discrete multiserver model for scheduling customer arrivals under no-shows. The challenge is to assign customers to time slots so that the service system utilizes its resources e ciently and customers experience short waiting times. We provide theoretical and heuristic guidelines for an e ective practice of appointment overbooking to o set no-shows. Recursive and explicit expressions for the performance measures of interest are derived based on the random evolution of the system’s workload in transient state. We prove discrete convexity properties of the optimization problem that restrict our search to a contained solution space and guarantee that a local search algorithm terminates with a globally optimal schedule. Extensive computational experiments reveal additional properties and patterns that appear in the optimal schedule and motivate the development of two very well-performing and computationally inexpensive heuristic solutions.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 639-656 |
| Number of pages | 18 |
| Journal | Manufacturing and Service Operations Management |
| Volume | 19 |
| Issue number | 4 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Sep 1 2017 |
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Keywords
- Discrete convexity
- Discrete queues
- No-shows
- Overbooking
- Parallel servers
- Scheduling
- Service systems
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Strategy and Management
- Management Science and Operations Research
Cite this
Managing customer arrivals in service systems with multiple identical servers. / Zacharias, Christos; Pinedo, Michael.
In: Manufacturing and Service Operations Management, Vol. 19, No. 4, 01.09.2017, p. 639-656.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article
}
TY - JOUR
T1 - Managing customer arrivals in service systems with multiple identical servers
AU - Zacharias, Christos
AU - Pinedo, Michael
PY - 2017/9/1
Y1 - 2017/9/1
N2 - We analyze a discrete multiserver model for scheduling customer arrivals under no-shows. The challenge is to assign customers to time slots so that the service system utilizes its resources e ciently and customers experience short waiting times. We provide theoretical and heuristic guidelines for an e ective practice of appointment overbooking to o set no-shows. Recursive and explicit expressions for the performance measures of interest are derived based on the random evolution of the system’s workload in transient state. We prove discrete convexity properties of the optimization problem that restrict our search to a contained solution space and guarantee that a local search algorithm terminates with a globally optimal schedule. Extensive computational experiments reveal additional properties and patterns that appear in the optimal schedule and motivate the development of two very well-performing and computationally inexpensive heuristic solutions.
AB - We analyze a discrete multiserver model for scheduling customer arrivals under no-shows. The challenge is to assign customers to time slots so that the service system utilizes its resources e ciently and customers experience short waiting times. We provide theoretical and heuristic guidelines for an e ective practice of appointment overbooking to o set no-shows. Recursive and explicit expressions for the performance measures of interest are derived based on the random evolution of the system’s workload in transient state. We prove discrete convexity properties of the optimization problem that restrict our search to a contained solution space and guarantee that a local search algorithm terminates with a globally optimal schedule. Extensive computational experiments reveal additional properties and patterns that appear in the optimal schedule and motivate the development of two very well-performing and computationally inexpensive heuristic solutions.
KW - Discrete convexity
KW - Discrete queues
KW - No-shows
KW - Overbooking
KW - Parallel servers
KW - Scheduling
KW - Service systems
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85032013409&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85032013409&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1287/msom.2017.0629
DO - 10.1287/msom.2017.0629
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85032013409
VL - 19
SP - 639
EP - 656
JO - Manufacturing and Service Operations Management
JF - Manufacturing and Service Operations Management
SN - 1523-4614
IS - 4
ER -