Creating operational shift schedules for third-level IT support: challenges, models and case study Online publication date: Wed, 19-Nov-2008
by Segev Wasserkrug, Shai Taub, Sergey Zeltyn, Dagan Gilat, Vladimir Lipets, Zohar Feldman, Avishai Mandelbaum
International Journal of Services Operations and Informatics (IJSOI), Vol. 3, No. 3/4, 2008
Abstract: IT support can be divided into first-level support, second-level support and third-level support. Although there is a large body of existing work regarding demand forecasting and shift schedule creation for various domains such as call centres, very little work exists for second- and third-level IT support. Moreover, there is a significant difference between such support and other types of services. As a result, current best practices for scheduling such work are not based on demand, but rather on primitive rules of thumb. Due to the increasing number of people providing such support, theory and practice is sorely needed for scheduling second- and third-level support shifts according to actual demand. In this work, we present an end-to-end methodology for forecasting and scheduling this type of work. We also present a case study in which this methodology demonstrated significant potential savings in terms of manpower resources.
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