Based on Quinn et al. (1991) Winter Riggers handles approximately $400 million in telephone orders per year Winter Riggers' system works as follows. Callers are connected to an agent if one is available. Otherwise, they are put on hold (if a trunk line is available). A customer can hang up at any time and leave the system. Winter Riggers would like to efficiently manage the telephone system (lines and agents) used to process these orders. Of course, orders are very seasonal and depend on the time of day.

a. What decisions must Winter Riggers make?

b. What would be an appropriate objective for Winter Riggers to minimize (or maximize)? What difficulties do you see in specifying the objective?

c. What data would Winter Riggers need to keep track of to improve its efficiency?