Prof. Mor Armony
Professor, New York University
Talk:
Pooling Queues with Work-Averse Servers
Abstract:
Contrary to the classical theory of operations management, recent case studies in healthcare, call centers, and retail indicate that pooling queues may not necessarily result in less expected work in process. In this paper, we propose that this phenomenon may arise when servers are work averse and have some discretion over their choice of service capacity. We distinguish two types of work aversion, namely workload aversion and busyness aversion, and show that dedicated configurations yield less expected work in process than pooled configurations when servers exhibit high degrees of workload aversion or low degrees of busyness aversion. We also find that busyness aversion tends to hurt more to the point that it could negate the operational benefits of queue pooling at their highest potential. Overall, our work suggests that service system designers may need to consider the servers' type and extent of work aversion as well as their degree of capacity choice discretion before pooling their workload.
*Joint work with Guillaume Roels and Hummy Song
Biography:
Mor Armony is professor of operations management and the George and Edythe Heyman Faculty Fellow at New York University Stern School of Business. Professor Armony teaches courses in operations management and in service operations.Professor Armony's primary research areas of interest include management of patient flow in healthcare, optimization of customer experience in contact centers, and general stochastic modeling of various operations. Her articles have appeared in numerous publications, including Management Science, Operations Research, and Queueing Systems.
