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Intelligence Made Easy

Load Balancing and


Workforce Optimization
using AI

Powering Enterprise Learning & Transformation


Introduction of Speakers

DIBYENDU DAS ROJALIN BISWAL


Dibyendu is the engagement partner analytics with PiSquare April 2018 Rojalin has around 10 years of experience in the field of Analytics and
onwards, mentoring startups. in the Analytics (AI and Machine Learning data systems. Her previous roles have been with Ab In Bev, Vodafone
based) and Management consulting space. Product and service & TCS.
functionality identification together with business development plans
are areas of facilitation. She was involved in the creation of econometrical models, machine
learning based prediction models, data wrangling & data visualization.
Dibyendu has 22+ years of experience in facilitating Operational
Excellence and transformation journeys within Service organizations. She was also involved in the creation of Data Marts and other data
repositories. She has worked with clients like Apple, Lloyds bank in
As an ex lead Auditor with COPC, he has facilitated operational Data Visualization, Reporting & Data Analytics profiles.
excellence journeys for more than 50 service organizations, over 250+
operational assessments across the world, panning Financial, Telecom,
Insurance, healthcare, retail, travel domains.
Objective
Work force optimisation is business strategy focused on balancing customer satisfaction, service levels,
workforce scheduling, operational costs and other key performance metrics in order for a business to get the
maximum benefit out of the employees working for them at any given time.
It is both art and science for working smarter, Working better and faster

Within targeted service level

Right number of Meet anticipated


Right skill Right Time
employees work volume

Minimal cost
Steps of Workforce Optimization

Forecast Schedule Optimize Publish Report

Maximize productivity Depending on the work Different what- if The optimal schedule A consolidated dashboard
through intelligent volume, available scenarios can be also plan needs to be report of all relevant KPI’S
forecasting number of resources, simulated to identify published to all the can be built to see the
and available time, the best fit with staff . impact on the overall
Different machine effective scheduling can business requirements Web based tool or apps outputs
learning algorithms are to be done. can be built which can
used to forecast be accessed by all the
expected work volumes This scenario usually staff depending on
uses optimization their privileges
algorithms for
identifying optimal
scheduling fitments
Maximize productivity through Forecasting
Harmonious balance between supply and demand is the main
objective of workforce analytics.

When demand is high like more inbound call, outbound calls,


emails, web chats, more number of support tickets and supply
(Number of advisors ) is low can lead to falling customer
satisfaction, reduced service levels and the vice versa can lead
to high cost.

Forecasting demand always helps in planning the supply.

• Exponential Smoothing
• Auto Regressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) Is this good ?
• Neural Networks
• Multiple Temporal Aggregation (MTA)
Factors to be considered
• Day of week (volumes may be higher on Mondays than
they are on Wednesdays)
• Day of month (volumes may be higher on the 1st, 15th or
30th)
• Season (holidays, anyone?)
• Seasonality:- contact centers will have regular, month-on-
month peaks and troughs in contact volumes.
For example, at Christmas time an insurance company is
likely to handle a lower number of contacts, as people will
have other priorities at this time of year, whereas a mobile
phone network will have more business at this time of year,
with the expected influx in phone sales.

• Trend:- It is unlikely for a contact center to receive the


same number of contacts year-on-year. The trend will
likely hinge on the growth of the business and other
smaller factors.
• External Factors:- Analyzing social media and factoring
events related to business will help to forecast the surge or
dip of work volume. Ex:-Marketing events or new feature
launch
Forecasting work volume- Sample
Historical data is used to forecast for next 2 months. Based on work volume number of employee is determined.

Error MAPE== 4.37


Pkg used::Prophet
Scheduling workforce

Decision Objective
Constraints Final Solution
Variable Function

Decision variables are the There must be clearly defined A constraint is an inequality Using different linear
quantities the decision maker objective which can be stated or equality defining optimisation methods and
would like would like to in quantitative way. limitations on decisions. applying constraints, optimal
determine . In business problems the Constraints arise from a values of decision variables
Decision Variables Xi = objective is generally profit variety of sources such as are generated .
Number of Full Time maximization or cost limited resources, contractual
employee (Beginning a new minimization. obligations, or physical laws.
shift) Required For Time The objective function
Period i ; i = 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 evaluates some quantitative For example an employee
Yi = Number of contract criterion of immediate cannot work more than 5
employee Required For Time importance such as cost, days or the no of hours words
Period i ; i = 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 profit, utility, or yield. must a minimum of 8 hours
Problem Statement
Hence, this problem can be stated as

What will be the optimal no of resources who will be spread across the shifts to ensure minimum cost within
the service level with the following constraints:

• Employee will work for 8 hours


• They will be there for 5 days consecutively
• At any point 20% of the workforce will be on a 2 day consecutive off
• There must be 24/7 coverage
Overall Summary

• For selected date range this dashboard


gives us an overview of Process to Agent
level performance for selected date range
• Process/Queue to agent (drill down) level
volume allocation is explained in form of a
tile diagram (Higher the size, Higher the
volume)
• The color range of the tiles indicates the
level of efficiency as indicated in the scale
Work Volume and Backlog

• Incoming vs Attempted volume trends


would help us understand the backlog
trends
• The follow up on monthly backlog is also
tracked and displayed in form a ring chart
• The summary further drills down to agent
level performance based on selection
made from the tile diagram
Actual vs Forecast
• Forecast selection provides futuristic data
which would help us plan things in advance
to avoid gaps that might hamper the
performance
• The resource availability can be planned
well in advance basis the predicted volume
trends
• The management can also manually add
sudden volume raises to recalculate the
resource requirement and same can be
extracted in form of a spreadsheet
• Based on provided constraints the no of
resources are planned and compared
against actual available
There can be multiple methods to solve
• Graphical Method
• Linear Optimization
Resource Utilization

• This section would help us swap resources


between process basis the requirement
and skillset
Individual Agent Performance

• Employee level information, skill


set and performance is also
made available
• This will help us understand the
employee skill set and capability
to work for new process before
being swapped
Notification

• An alert is triggered when


system detects any deviation
from the process and hence
calls for action
KPI Summary

• The key parameters are


summarized here in this section
Use Cases – Employee Scheduling

https://xd.adobe.com/view/b15a4672-ef02-4c69-69e8-0e8c54fee966-c76b/?fullscreen

http://206.189.83.196:86/prediction/forecasting/

Shift Allocation and Planning


THANK YOU!

You can mail your queries at:

veera.sivaji@transcube.co
rojalin@pisquare.io

www.transcube.co
www.pisquare.io

SAMPLE PROFILES | 18

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