Devendra Choudhary, Bhamu JP and Jakhar OP
In this paper a binary integer linear programming model is proposed for scheduling tour of service personnel in aftersale service process. The model aims to minimize the service personnel’s overall travel time of visiting all customers with additional side conditions that customers should be served by first come first serve (FCFS) priority basis within specified service response time. These side conditions are important strategies in present era of time-based competition. The objective and side conditions are considered for both profitability and effectiveness. Indeed, for given service response time, optimal tour plan would minimize the quantity of service personnel. This decreases the hiring cost of service personnel and thus increases the profitability of after-sale service process. On the other hand, for given quantity of service personnel, optimal tour plan would reduce the service response time. Responsive after-sale service on FCFS priority basis will increase the customer satisfaction, which in turn leads to more repeat orders and hence improves the profitability. The proposed model can capture all realistic constraints of service management process, such as time windows, skill requirement, balanced workload distribution, etc. A numerical illustration is included to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed model in conducting economic analysis of an after-sale service process.
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