How to simulate a customer service centre in a mobile phone store

[mohammad_reza_a]

[ FlexSim 18.0.2 ]

A customer service centre of a local mobile phone company has customers arriving exponentially with an average of 5 minutes. After entering the company, all customers go directly to the ticket machine to take an ordered ticket. They take 1 ± 0.5 minute uniformly to do so. Then they go to the waiting area and sit down. The customers are waiting to request 1 of 3 representatives. Historical data shows that 40% of the customers want to see the representative of Network Service, 40% want to see the representative of Repair Service, and 20% want to see the representative of Billing Service. When the desired representative is available, a staff will escort the customer from the waiting area to the representative. When seeing the representative of Network Service, the visit lasts to be normally distributed with a mean of 7 minutes and a standard deviation of 2 minutes. When seeing the representative of Repair Service, the visit takes to be normally distributed with a mean of 10 minutes and a standard deviation of 2 minutes. The visit of representative of Billing Service lasts to be normally distributed with a mean of 5 and a standard deviation of 1.

Some of the customers also see the Promotion Service after they have finished their servicing with the representatives of Network Service, Repair Service or Billing Service. An Assistant Manager will escort such customers to his room and introduces the promotion package individually. The introduction takes to be normally distributed with a mean of 10 minutes and a standard deviation of 3 minutes.

Marketing Department found that 10% of the customers that enquire Network Service listen to the introduction of Promotion Service, 20% that see the Repair Service listen to the introduction of Promotion Service, and 5% who have seen the representative of Billing Service listen to the introduction of Promotion Service. After listening the introduction of promotion with the Assistant Manager, the customers leave.

Run the model from 9:00am to 1:00pm, with 5 replications, view the results, then answer the following:

.a) What is the % of the staff’s time is spent in use?

.b) What is the % of the Assistant Manager’s time is spent in use?

.c) What about the utilization of the 3 representatives?

.d) On average, how long do customers wait in the waiting area?

.e) What was the most number of customers waiting to see the representative at one time?

[Matthew_Gillespie · Accepted solution]

This is clearly a homework assignment and I doubt anyone is going to do your assignment for you.

If you take a look at the tutorials in the user manual there are several that do similar things to what you need to do for your assignment. Take a look at those to help you get started.

If you have specific questions that come up as you're working on this assignment feel free to post those here on Answers.

[mohammad_reza_a]

Thanks for your reply. I tried to perform this project. is it possible to perform it without process flow? since when I try to use process flow my trial version reaches it's model limit.

[mohammad_reza_a]

is there a simulation way to perform this project? like the waiting room and anything else... since all the tutorials in guidebook are with process flow!

[joerg_vogel_HsH]

@Mohammad reza A with this answer you can try to convince the person who set the assignment to drop it. The people module is a feature which let you build models which looks better to the reality now.

You can build it completely without the people module. Please build the model with box flowitems, which are the customers, and with queues and processors. The model will really look abstract in comparison to the people module. Near the end of model building you can exchange the shape of the box to person shape. If you need the time the customers walk then insert additional processors or delay activities. The animation might not look so nice as with the people module but you get the statistical results.

[mohammad_reza_a]

Thanks for your helpful reply. I tried to follow your guidelines and some tutorials. but now it makes an error. I don't understand why it does not complete the process.

I've attached my file. I will appreciate if you take a look at it and help me in this...

123.fsm

[joerg_vogel_HsH]

You are still using activities of the people module. Please, turn away from this approach to use parts of the people module until you get a stand alone license or you can pull a network license.

Here is a model to show you what I mean. A transport of a box can represent the staff utilization for example. Or you build an additional sub model representing the staff utilization, or you use a ProcessFlow to get the data of the utilization of the staff and service members. Be creative to achieve your aim. If you can't find a method to model each task, then don't build the task. Try to get your data first, the animation is only an additional nice feature.

[Matthew_Gillespie]

@Mohammad reza A Do you have a student license? Or are you using the express version?

[mohammad_reza_a]

@Jörg Vogel I'm trying to perform it with process flow. In tutorial it uses Decision Point and easily it sends the items with a specific percentage to a sink or queue. But here I don't have any clue. Is there any Tutorial for this? very confused...

service-center-model.fsm

[mohammad_reza_a]

I'm using Express version. and quite confused how to perform tutorial's methods in my assignment