What does staffing to an average day cost you?
Staffing to average demand looks disciplined and costs money, because bad days are far more expensive than quiet days are wasteful. The optimizer prices that asymmetry instead of arguing about it.
Operations Intermediate Optimization under Uncertainty Pro engine
After you install, this is the model to open.
How Many People Should Be on Shift?
- In your spreadsheet, click the Sortia icon in the strip of icons down the right-hand edge. No strip? Click the arrow at the bottom-right to open it. You can also use Extensions, then Sortia, then Open Sortia.
- Click Start from a template and put that name in the search box.
- Pick the card with that name and click Load this template. It arrives on a new tab with real numbers already in it.
This one runs on a Pro engine, and every free install includes five full-quality runs on your own numbers, shared across all five Pro engines rather than five for each. After that, Pro is $199/year.
The answer
Minimizing expected daily cost:
- Optimal roster
- 26 agents
- Expected cost
- $7,180 per day
- Staffing to the average (21)
- $8,020 per day
Carrying five apparently unnecessary people is about $840 a day cheaper than not carrying them. Note what it does not buy: the desk still fails to clear everything about one day in eight, and that is correct, because clearing the 1,450-ticket day every time would cost more than the failures do. The cost curve is flat between 24 and 27 agents, all of them within about $80 a day of each other, so a rerun may answer 25 instead; anywhere in that band is the same answer.
The model
One agent clears 42 tickets a day at $260. Anything left over costs $34 a ticket in overtime and service credits. Arrivals are a three-point estimate: 520 quiet, 820 typical, 1,450 when a release goes wrong.
| Agent capacity / cost | 42 tickets / $260 a day |
| Overflow cost | $34 per ticket |
| Arrivals | PERT(520, 820, 1450) |
| Roster size | optimized, minimize cost |
Once it is in your sheet
- The model arrives with real numbers in it and runs as it stands, so you can press the button first and understand it second.
- Change the numbers to yours. The sheet marks which cells are inputs and which hold formulas, and most labels carry a note explaining the row.
- Press the run button at the bottom of the panel. It is labeled for the tool you are in, and the result lands on its own tab, with a written reading of it beside the figures.
Never used Google Sheets? Start here goes the whole way, in seven steps, and assumes nothing.
Next question
- How many extra seats before someone gets bumped?What Is the Best Number to Oversell?
- Everyone fits. Did anyone actually get what they wanted?Seat Everyone Without Breaking the Rules
- What is the cheapest menu that still keeps every promise?Feed Everyone for the Least Money
- Which venue is actually cheapest per head?Rank the Venues on What They Cost You
- More invitations, or more notice?What Predicts Turnout?
- Packing the best thing first. What does that cost you?Fit the Most Into One Box
Every model like this one, and the method behind them: Optimization under uncertainty.