SIMULATION-BASED OPTIMIZATION TOOL FOR FIELD SERVICE PLANNING
Publication Type:
Refereed Conference Meeting Proceeding
Abstract:
Many companies that deliver units to customer premises need to provide periodical maintenance and
services on request by their field service technicians. A common challenge is to evaluate different design
choices, related to staffing decisions, technician scheduling strategies, and technological improvements in
order to make the system more efficient. This work provides a simulation-based optimization tool to support
decision makers in tackling this challenging problem. The proposed framework relies on an optimization
engine for the generation of the daily plans. A simulation component is used to evaluate the applicability
of such plans by taking into account the stochastic factors. Furthermore, an interface manages the
communication between these two components and allows a feedback loop between the simulator and the
optimizer to achieve more robust plans. The applicability of the framework is demonstrated through a
business case to evaluate different staffing decisions.
Conference Name:
Winter Simulation Conference
Proceedings:
Proceedings of the 2019 Winter Simulation Conference N. Mustafee, K.-H.G. Bae, S. Lazarova-Molnar, M. Rabe, C. Szabo, P. Haas, and Y.J. Son, eds.
Digital Object Identifer (DOI):
10.1109/WSC40007.2019.9004869
Publication Date:
09/12/2019
Conference Location:
United States of America
Research Group:
Institution:
National University of Ireland, Cork (UCC)
Project Acknowledges:
Open access repository:
No