Case Study Cable & Moore Through experience, management knew that training a new em- ployee well was essential. Each new employee was put through a 1-month training program and was assigned to an existing em- ployee for an entire month. Normally, an existing employee would work 160 hours per month. However, when an employee was assigned to perform training of a new hire, the productive work hours for that employee dropped to 80 hours per month. During the training period, the trainee was paid $2,000 for the month. At the end of that time, the monthly salary increased to the standard salary for a regular customer service representa- tive, which is $3,000 per month. In the past, the company lost about 5% of the trained customer service representatives per month due to attrition. While the company is looking to im- prove upon this, for the next several months it is anticipated that this will continue. There will be 150 trained employees at the beginning of April. Management of the company would like to develop a schedule for hiring new employees so that there are sufficient customer service representatives to meet the demand, but this is to be done at the lowest possible cost. With the company expanding into several new markets in the coming months, Cable & Moore was anticipating a large in- crease in sales revenue. The future looked bright for this pro- vider of television, telephone, and Internet services. However, management of Cable & Moore was well aware of the impor- tance of customer service in new markets. If customers had problems with new service and could not quickly and efficiently have their problems solved, demand would quickly erode, and it might take years to recover from the bad publicity. Therefore, management was adamant that there be enough well-trained customer service representatives to handle the calls from new customers and from potential customers. Based on experience in other markets, the anticipated number of phone calls to customer service was projected. Given the aver- age call-length, the number of hours of customer-service time from April to August was projected and is shown in the table below. ΜΟΝΤΗ APRIL MAY JUNE JULY AUGUST

Practical Management Science
6th Edition
ISBN:9781337406659
Author:WINSTON, Wayne L.
Publisher:WINSTON, Wayne L.
Chapter2: Introduction To Spreadsheet Modeling
Section: Chapter Questions
Problem 20P: Julie James is opening a lemonade stand. She believes the fixed cost per week of running the stand...
icon
Related questions
Question

Formulate the objective function and constraints function for the problem

Case Study
Cable & Moore
Through experience, management knew that training a new em-
ployee well was essential. Each new employee was put through a
1-month training program and was assigned to an existing em-
ployee for an entire month. Normally, an existing employee would
work 160 hours per month. However, when an employee was
assigned to perform training of a new hire, the productive work
hours for that employee dropped to 80 hours per month.
During the training period, the trainee was paid $2,000 for
the month. At the end of that time, the monthly salary increased
to the standard salary for a regular customer service representa-
tive, which is $3,000 per month. In the past, the company lost
about 5% of the trained customer service representatives per
month due to attrition. While the company is looking to im-
prove upon this, for the next several months it is anticipated that
this will continue. There will be 150 trained employees at the
beginning of April. Management of the company would like to
develop a schedule for hiring new employees so that there are
sufficient customer service representatives to meet the demand,
but this is to be done at the lowest possible cost.
With the company expanding into several new markets in the
coming months, Cable & Moore was anticipating a large in-
crease in sales revenue. The future looked bright for this pro-
vider of television, telephone, and Internet services. However,
management of Cable & Moore was well aware of the impor-
tance of customer service in new markets. If customers had
problems with new service and could not quickly and efficiently
have their problems solved, demand would quickly erode, and
it might take years to recover from the bad publicity. Therefore,
management was adamant that there be enough well-trained
customer service representatives to handle the calls from new
customers and from potential customers.
Based on experience in other markets, the anticipated number
of phone calls to customer service was projected. Given the aver-
age call-length, the number of hours of customer-service time from
April to August was projected and is shown in the table below.
ΜΟΝΤΗ
APRIL
MAY
JUNE
JULY
AUGUST
Hours needed 21,600 24,600 27,200 28,200
29,700
Transcribed Image Text:Case Study Cable & Moore Through experience, management knew that training a new em- ployee well was essential. Each new employee was put through a 1-month training program and was assigned to an existing em- ployee for an entire month. Normally, an existing employee would work 160 hours per month. However, when an employee was assigned to perform training of a new hire, the productive work hours for that employee dropped to 80 hours per month. During the training period, the trainee was paid $2,000 for the month. At the end of that time, the monthly salary increased to the standard salary for a regular customer service representa- tive, which is $3,000 per month. In the past, the company lost about 5% of the trained customer service representatives per month due to attrition. While the company is looking to im- prove upon this, for the next several months it is anticipated that this will continue. There will be 150 trained employees at the beginning of April. Management of the company would like to develop a schedule for hiring new employees so that there are sufficient customer service representatives to meet the demand, but this is to be done at the lowest possible cost. With the company expanding into several new markets in the coming months, Cable & Moore was anticipating a large in- crease in sales revenue. The future looked bright for this pro- vider of television, telephone, and Internet services. However, management of Cable & Moore was well aware of the impor- tance of customer service in new markets. If customers had problems with new service and could not quickly and efficiently have their problems solved, demand would quickly erode, and it might take years to recover from the bad publicity. Therefore, management was adamant that there be enough well-trained customer service representatives to handle the calls from new customers and from potential customers. Based on experience in other markets, the anticipated number of phone calls to customer service was projected. Given the aver- age call-length, the number of hours of customer-service time from April to August was projected and is shown in the table below. ΜΟΝΤΗ APRIL MAY JUNE JULY AUGUST Hours needed 21,600 24,600 27,200 28,200 29,700
Expert Solution
trending now

Trending now

This is a popular solution!

steps

Step by step

Solved in 2 steps with 4 images

Blurred answer
Similar questions
  • SEE MORE QUESTIONS
Recommended textbooks for you
Practical Management Science
Practical Management Science
Operations Management
ISBN:
9781337406659
Author:
WINSTON, Wayne L.
Publisher:
Cengage,
Operations Management
Operations Management
Operations Management
ISBN:
9781259667473
Author:
William J Stevenson
Publisher:
McGraw-Hill Education
Operations and Supply Chain Management (Mcgraw-hi…
Operations and Supply Chain Management (Mcgraw-hi…
Operations Management
ISBN:
9781259666100
Author:
F. Robert Jacobs, Richard B Chase
Publisher:
McGraw-Hill Education
Business in Action
Business in Action
Operations Management
ISBN:
9780135198100
Author:
BOVEE
Publisher:
PEARSON CO
Purchasing and Supply Chain Management
Purchasing and Supply Chain Management
Operations Management
ISBN:
9781285869681
Author:
Robert M. Monczka, Robert B. Handfield, Larry C. Giunipero, James L. Patterson
Publisher:
Cengage Learning
Production and Operations Analysis, Seventh Editi…
Production and Operations Analysis, Seventh Editi…
Operations Management
ISBN:
9781478623069
Author:
Steven Nahmias, Tava Lennon Olsen
Publisher:
Waveland Press, Inc.