IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ejores/v287y2020i3p820-831.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Accounting for cost heterogeneity on the demand in the context of a technician dispatching problem

Author

Listed:
  • Cavada, Juan P.
  • Cortés, Cristián E.
  • Goic, Marcel
  • Weintraub, Andrés
  • Zambrano, Juan I.

Abstract

In the technician dispatching problem, a given number of repair teams must visit different locations to provide service support. Considering that there is a fixed vehicle capacity and variations in the demand, not all requests can be satisfied on time and therefore some of them must be delayed. Most implementations of the dispatching problem consider a penalty that might vary depending on the customers to internalize that they have heterogeneous costs for being postponed. In this research we analyze how such variations in costs affect the outcome of service planning in the context of an efficient technician dispatching problem. We focus our analysis on two objectives: first, to understand how cost heterogeneity affects the performance of optimal solutions, and second to illustrate how a firm could implement an ad-hoc methodology even in cases where only observable customers’ features can be traced. Specifically, we explore how the distribution of costs affects optimal solutions of allocating teams during a daily operation of the service provider, and then we propose a Markovian model to capture cost-heterogeneity for the case where the cost of failure can be traced to observable operational characteristics. In this model we explicitly consider the cost faced by the customer by having inferior service quality. Our results indicate that when customers are sufficiently different, transportation and total penalty costs decrease gaining in operational efficiency. Moreover, results from the Markovian model indicate that firms can take advantage of these operational gains even in cases where only few customer characteristics are observed.

Suggested Citation

  • Cavada, Juan P. & Cortés, Cristián E. & Goic, Marcel & Weintraub, Andrés & Zambrano, Juan I., 2020. "Accounting for cost heterogeneity on the demand in the context of a technician dispatching problem," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 287(3), pages 820-831.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:ejores:v:287:y:2020:i:3:p:820-831
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ejor.2020.04.056
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0377221720304094
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ejor.2020.04.056?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Roberto Baldacci & Enrico Bartolini & Aristide Mingozzi & Roberto Roberti, 2010. "An exact solution framework for a broad class of vehicle routing problems," Computational Management Science, Springer, vol. 7(3), pages 229-268, July.
    2. Zhao, Yaping & Xu, Xiaoyun & Li, Haidong & Liu, Yanni, 2016. "Prioritized customer order scheduling to maximize throughput," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 255(2), pages 345-356.
    3. Arie Harel, 1988. "Sharp Bounds and Simple Approximations for the Erlang Delay and Loss Formulas," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 34(8), pages 959-972, August.
    4. Vidal, Thibaut & Crainic, Teodor Gabriel & Gendreau, Michel & Prins, Christian, 2013. "Heuristics for multi-attribute vehicle routing problems: A survey and synthesis," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 231(1), pages 1-21.
    5. Arie Harel, 1988. "Erratum to: Sharp Bounds and Simple Approximations for the Erlang Delay and Loss Formulas," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 34(10), pages 1277-1277, October.
    6. Fangruo Chen, 2001. "Market Segmentation, Advanced Demand Information, and Supply Chain Performance," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 3(1), pages 53-67, February.
    7. Tang, Hao & Miller-Hooks, Elise & Tomastik, Robert, 2007. "Scheduling technicians for planned maintenance of geographically distributed equipment," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 43(5), pages 591-609, September.
    8. Salani, Matteo & Vacca, Ilaria, 2011. "Branch and price for the vehicle routing problem with discrete split deliveries and time windows," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 213(3), pages 470-477, September.
    9. Philipp Afèche & J. Michael Pavlin, 2016. "Optimal Price/Lead-Time Menus for Queues with Customer Choice: Segmentation, Pooling, and Strategic Delay," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 62(8), pages 2412-2436, August.
    10. Cortés, Cristián E. & Gendreau, Michel & Rousseau, Louis Martin & Souyris, Sebastián & Weintraub, Andrés, 2014. "Branch-and-price and constraint programming for solving a real-life technician dispatching problem," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 238(1), pages 300-312.
    11. Stringfellow, Anne & Nie, Winter & Bowen, David E., 2004. "CRM: Profiting from understanding customer needs," Business Horizons, Elsevier, vol. 47(5), pages 45-52.
    12. Éric Taillard & Philippe Badeau & Michel Gendreau & François Guertin & Jean-Yves Potvin, 1997. "A Tabu Search Heuristic for the Vehicle Routing Problem with Soft Time Windows," Transportation Science, INFORMS, vol. 31(2), pages 170-186, May.
    13. Pangburn, Michael S. & Stavrulaki, Euthemia, 2008. "Capacity and price setting for dispersed, time-sensitive customer segments," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 184(3), pages 1100-1121, February.
    14. Don Weigel & Buyang Cao, 1999. "Applying GIS and OR Techniques to Solve Sears Technician-Dispatching and Home Delivery Problems," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 29(1), pages 112-130, February.
    15. Brian Kallehauge & Jesper Larsen & Oli B.G. Madsen & Marius M. Solomon, 2005. "Vehicle Routing Problem with Time Windows," Springer Books, in: Guy Desaulniers & Jacques Desrosiers & Marius M. Solomon (ed.), Column Generation, chapter 0, pages 67-98, Springer.
    16. Christophe Duhamel & Jean-Yves Potvin & Jean-Marc Rousseau, 1997. "A Tabu Search Heuristic for the Vehicle Routing Problem with Backhauls and Time Windows," Transportation Science, INFORMS, vol. 31(1), pages 49-59, February.
    17. Abdelaziz, Fouad Ben & Aouni, Belaid & Fayedh, Rimeh El, 2007. "Multi-objective stochastic programming for portfolio selection," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 177(3), pages 1811-1823, March.
    18. J-F Cordeau & M Gendreau & G Laporte & J-Y Potvin & F Semet, 2002. "A guide to vehicle routing heuristics," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 53(5), pages 512-522, May.
    19. Jayamohan, M. S. & Rajendran, Chandrasekharan, 2004. "Development and analysis of cost-based dispatching rules for job shop scheduling," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 157(2), pages 307-321, September.
    20. Baldacci, Roberto & Mingozzi, Aristide & Roberti, Roberto, 2012. "Recent exact algorithms for solving the vehicle routing problem under capacity and time window constraints," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 218(1), pages 1-6.
    21. Fred Blakeley & Burçin Argüello & Buyang Cao & Wolfgang Hall & Joseph Knolmajer, 2003. "Optimizing Periodic Maintenance Operations for Schindler Elevator Corporation," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 33(1), pages 67-79, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Nowak, Maciek & Szufel, Przemysław, 2024. "Technician routing and scheduling for the sharing economy," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 314(1), pages 15-31.
    2. Levent Kutlu & Robin C. Sickles & Mike G. Tsionas & Emmanuel Mamatzakis, 2022. "Heterogeneous decision-making and market power: an application to Eurozone banks," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 63(6), pages 3061-3092, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Cortés, Cristián E. & Gendreau, Michel & Rousseau, Louis Martin & Souyris, Sebastián & Weintraub, Andrés, 2014. "Branch-and-price and constraint programming for solving a real-life technician dispatching problem," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 238(1), pages 300-312.
    2. Paraskevopoulos, Dimitris C. & Laporte, Gilbert & Repoussis, Panagiotis P. & Tarantilis, Christos D., 2017. "Resource constrained routing and scheduling: Review and research prospects," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 263(3), pages 737-754.
    3. Daniel Schubert & André Scholz & Gerhard Wäscher, 2018. "Integrated order picking and vehicle routing with due dates," OR Spectrum: Quantitative Approaches in Management, Springer;Gesellschaft für Operations Research e.V., vol. 40(4), pages 1109-1139, October.
    4. ARNOLD, Florian & SÖRENSEN, Kenneth, 2017. "A simple, deterministic, and efficient knowledge-driven heuristic for the vehicle routing problem," Working Papers 2017012, University of Antwerp, Faculty of Business and Economics.
    5. Olli Bräysy & Michel Gendreau, 2005. "Vehicle Routing Problem with Time Windows, Part II: Metaheuristics," Transportation Science, INFORMS, vol. 39(1), pages 119-139, February.
    6. Drexl, Michael & Schneider, Michael, 2015. "A survey of variants and extensions of the location-routing problem," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 241(2), pages 283-308.
    7. Daniel Schubert & André Scholz & Gerhard Wäscher, 2017. "Integrated Order Picking and Vehicle Routing with Due Dates," FEMM Working Papers 170007, Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg, Faculty of Economics and Management.
    8. Matteo Salani & Maria Battarra, 2018. "The opportunity cost of time window violations," EURO Journal on Transportation and Logistics, Springer;EURO - The Association of European Operational Research Societies, vol. 7(4), pages 343-361, December.
    9. Ostermeier, Manuel, 2024. "The supply of convenience stores: Challenges of short-distance routing within the constraints of working time regulations," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 314(3), pages 997-1012.
    10. Z Fu & R Eglese & L Y O Li, 2005. "A new tabu search heuristic for the open vehicle routing problem," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 56(3), pages 267-274, March.
    11. Jose Carlos Molina & Ignacio Eguia & Jesus Racero, 2018. "An optimization approach for designing routes in metrological control services: a case study," Flexible Services and Manufacturing Journal, Springer, vol. 30(4), pages 924-952, December.
    12. Ines Mathlouthi & Michel Gendreau & Jean-Yves Potvin, 2021. "Branch-and-Price for a Multi-attribute Technician Routing and Scheduling Problem," SN Operations Research Forum, Springer, vol. 2(1), pages 1-35, March.
    13. Ehsan Pourjavad & Eman Almehdawe, 2022. "Optimization of the technician routing and scheduling problem for a telecommunication industry," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 315(1), pages 371-395, August.
    14. Nicolas Rincon-Garcia & Ben J. Waterson & Tom J. Cherrett, 2018. "Requirements from vehicle routing software: perspectives from literature, developers and the freight industry," Transport Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(1), pages 117-138, January.
    15. Bhusiri, Narath & Qureshi, Ali Gul & Taniguchi, Eiichi, 2014. "The trade-off between fixed vehicle costs and time-dependent arrival penalties in a routing problem," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 1-22.
    16. Remy Spliet & Adriana F. Gabor, 2015. "The Time Window Assignment Vehicle Routing Problem," Transportation Science, INFORMS, vol. 49(4), pages 721-731, November.
    17. Schyns, M., 2015. "An ant colony system for responsive dynamic vehicle routing," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 245(3), pages 704-718.
    18. Sungwon Lee & Taesung Hwang, 2018. "Estimating Emissions from Regional Freight Delivery under Different Urban Development Scenarios," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(4), pages 1-14, April.
    19. Campelo, Pedro & Neves-Moreira, Fábio & Amorim, Pedro & Almada-Lobo, Bernardo, 2019. "Consistent vehicle routing problem with service level agreements: A case study in the pharmaceutical distribution sector," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 273(1), pages 131-145.
    20. Michel Gendreau & Jean-Yves Potvin, 2005. "Metaheuristics in Combinatorial Optimization," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 140(1), pages 189-213, November.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ejores:v:287:y:2020:i:3:p:820-831. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/eor .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.