Consolidating Regional Dispatch Centers Into One Location

3. Consolidating Regional Dispatch Centers Into One Location

Dispatch unit acts as the interface between the DMI and the technicians. There are 5 regions in total and 24 dispatchers working to assign the best candidates for solving the problems. But there are two major problems. As it can be seen in the flow chart, there is a frequent need of communication or acknowledgement between the tech and the dispatcher. If the tech cannot reach the dispatcher due to long waiting times on phones, then the process is delayed. The main reason for the delays is people working in the regional dispatch buildings not answering the phone in the mornings, after lunch and late in the day. This covers a lot of time for such a critical process. If a tech cannot reach the dispatcher, he cannot inform the situation of the service or call them for the next call. As informed in the case, a tech is capable of getting 4 service calls per day, whereas the mean of service calls is 2.1. Hence, we can say that the ongoing communication problem between techs and dispatchers plays some role on the undesirable utilization rate of techs. Consolidating all dispatch centers into one might alleviate the problem. The reasoning behind this is, if there are 24 people working on the same building, people can work on shifts more comfortably since as the number of people increases, compensating others are easier and the allocation of the dispatchers can be applied. For instance, if the upper east coast region is having a busy day, more dispatchers can lean towards that region. This way the unfrequented regions will help others to lessen the delay times. Besides, a centralized unit will be more manageable than 5 different places scattered all around the country. Dispatchers who causes the delays can be spotted more easily.

Overall consolidation of the regional dispatch centers seems favorable for

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