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8 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

MANAGEMENT SCIENCE IN ACTION

Workforce Scheduling For British Telecommunications PLC
ritish Telecommunications (BT) are leading pro- the difficulty of predicting in advance how much
Bviders of telecommunications services in the time some jobs would take. The Operational
UK. BT employs over 50 000 field engineers to main- Research department at BT developed Work Man-
tain telecoms networks, repair faults and provide a ager, an information system that automates work
variety of services to customers. Managing the work- management and field communications. Rolled
force effectively is critical to efficiency, profitability, out in 1997 and reaching 20 000 engineers in 1998,
customer service, service quality and to staff morale this was saving BT US$150 million a year on opera-
and motivation. Workforce scheduling is essentially tional costs by 2000. When deployed over the tar-
about making sure the right field engineer goes to geted workforce of 40 000 people, the system
the right customer at the right time with the right was projected to save an estimated US$250 million
equipment. However, BT faced a very complex task. a year.
The skills and experience of engineers varied con-
siderably; their geographical location was effectively
Based on David Lesaint, Christos Voudoris, Noder Azarmi ‘Dynamic
fixed; scheduling had to incorporate individual Workforce Scheduling for British Telecommunications plc’, Interfaces
engineer constraints such as breaks and holidays; 30, no. 1 (Jan/Feb 2000): 45–56

Transportation
Transportation problems involve, predictably enough, situations where items have to
be transported in an efficient and effective way. This might involve transporting
manufactured products, such as smartphones, from where they’re made to where
they’re sold. It might involve transporting medical supplies, such as blood and
plasma, from where they’re collected to where they’re needed. It might involve
transporting food and emergency supplies from donor countries to the site of a
natural disaster such as an earthquake or cyclone. MS has developed techniques to
help managers make appropriate decisions about transportation problems.

We’ve tried to show in this section that MS isn’t just a collection of specialized
techniques only of interest to the MS specialist but rather that MS has a role to play
in many organizations where managers face such decisions. Throughout the text,
we’ll deliberately be introducing MS techniques in a business and management
context. That is we’ll be looking at a typical business decision problem and then
seeing how MS can help managers make better decisions.

1.4 The MS Approach

Not surprisingly, given the emphasis on a scientific approach to management,
management scientists try to follow a logical, systematic and analytical method when
looking at a decision problem. This approach (or methodology) is summarized in
Figure 1.1 and follows a sequence of: Problem Recognition; Problem Structuring and
Definition; Modelling and Analysis; Solution and Recommendations; Implementation.
(Note: different management scientists have their own versions of this methodology.
However, most of these are similar in content.)
We shall use a simple scenario to show how the methodology is applied. The President
of the College where you are studying has heard that you’re studying management

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