In this paper we study a challenging call center operation problem. The goal of our analysis is to identify an optimal policy for allocating tasks to agents. As a first step, we discuss promising randomized policies and use stochastic approximation for finding the optimal randomized policy when...

In this paper we study a challenging call center operation problem. The goal of our analysis is to identify an optimal policy for allocating tasks to agents. As a first step, we discuss promising randomized policies and use stochastic approximation for finding the optimal randomized policy when...

Having sufficient inventories in the forward or piece picking area of a warehouse is an essential condition for warehouse operations. As pickers consume the inventory in the piece racks, there is a risk of stockout. This can be reduced by the timely replenishment of products from the bulk...

In this paper, we consider deterministic (both fluid and discrete) polling systems with N queues with infinite buffers and we show how to compute the best polling sequence (minimizing the average total workload). With two queues, the best polling sequence is always periodic when the system is...

In this companion paper of [10] we introduce the combinatorial notion of unbalance for a routing pattern. Using this unbalance we derive an upper bound for the total average expected waiting time of jobs which are routed to parallel queues according to a periodic routing rule. A billiard...

In this paper we introduce the combinatorial notion of unbalance for a periodic zero-one splitting sequence. Using this unbalance we derive an upper bound for the average expected waiting time of jobs which are routed to one queue according to a periodic zero-one splitting sequence. In the...

In this paper we introduce the combinatorial notion of unbalance for a periodic zero-one splitting sequence. Using this unbalance we derive an upper bound for the average expected waiting time of jobs which are routed to one queue according to a periodic zero-one splitting sequence. In the...

In this companion paper of [10] we introduce the combinatorial notion of unbalance for a routing pattern. Using this unbalance we derive an upper bound for the total average expected waiting time of jobs which are routed to parallel queues according to a periodic routing rule. A billiard...

Unique-lowest sealed-bid auctions are auctions in which participation is endogenous and the winning bid is the lowest bid among all unique bids. Such auctions admit very many Nash equilibria (NEs) in pure and mixed strategies. The two-bidders' auction is similar to the Hawk-Dove game, which...

In this paper, we consider deterministic (both fluid and discrete) polling systems with <I>N</I> queues with infinite buffers and we show how to compute the best polling sequence (minimizing the average total workload). With two queues, the best polling sequence is always periodic when the system is...</i>