Optimal configuration of telephone answering sites in a service industry

The location of facilities, plants, warehouses, distribution centers and the like has always been an important managerial problem. This paper is concerned with the optimal location of telephone answering sites for a non-competitive service organization within the public sector. The answering site network must service the entire United States. The methodological approach taken to addressing the telephone site location problem was integer programming. While the paper to be described herein presents the problem in a conceptual fashion, the approach adopted was in fact the basis of an actual model within a particular national service organization. For reasons of confidentially, the subject organization has requested to remain anonymous.This model and paper presents a conceptual treatment of a portion of a larger study to encompass all aspects of the telephone site location question; that portion directly related to site location and telecommunications. Non-telecommunications aspects such as staffing, space and property considerations, plus other operating cost and non-cost considerations, the latter including organizational and managerial aspects, were also a part of a larger study of which treatment herein will be excluded. The model discussed and developed provided the principal focus and basis for decision making pertaining to this project, primarily due to the large proportion of total costs involved.The study project is national in scope in that callers from all parts of the country have need for various kinds of technical and non-technical information at all times of the year. The location aspect of the telecommunications portion of the telephone model is itself but one aspect of the total problem. Additional aspects include the optimal number of telephone answering sites as well as the appropriate domain (geography served) of each site and the telecommunications (circuitry) configuration at each site.While results of the modelling effort have not been made officially public by the organization under study, it can be stated that the modelling effort resulted in several organization changes including opening and closing of individual offices, domain realignments of new or existing offices, and significant cost savings primarily due to telecommunication cost reductions and increased utilization of telephone answering manpower.