Abstract
Planning of manager’s workload is an elusive and challenging issue that has no exact quantitative tools. This paper develops for the first time (to the best of our knowledge) an analytical model that shows how a manager’s activity and its associated workload can be analyzed as a provision of various services. The model is essentially a queuing model of tasks with arrivals, waiting time, and services (with a single server). The model is first analyzed in the most general way, finding the mean values of waiting times and queue length. While the proposed model is for one manager, it is based on very general assumptions and would fit most practical environments. Then, a simpler model for determining the optimal span of control for a manager is developed and illustrated using a numerical example.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Wong, C.A., Elliott-Miller, P., Laschinger, H., Cuddihy, M., Meyer, R.M., Keatings, M., Burnett, C., Szudy, N.: Examining the relationships between span of control and manager job and unit performance outcomes. J. Nurs. Manage. 23, 156–168 (2015)
Nasrallah, W.F., Ouba, C.J., Yassine, A.A., Srour, I.M.: Modeling the span of control of leaders with different skill sets. Comput. Math. Organ. Theory 21(3), 296–317 (2015)
Mintzberg, H.: Mintzberg on Management. Free Press, New-York (2007)
Ashcroft, H.: The productivity of several machines under the care of one operator. J. R. Stat. Soc. B 12(1), 145–151 (1950)
Bunday, B.D., Scraton, R.E.: The G/M/r machine interference model. Eur. J. Oper. Res. 4, 399–402 (1980)
Haque, L., Armstrong, M.J.: A survey of the machine interference problem. Eur. J. Oper. Res. 179, 469–482 (2007)
Gong, J., Li, M.: Queuing time decision model with the consideration on call center customer abandonment behavior. J. Netw. 9(9), 2441–2447 (2014)
Ernst, A.T., Jiang, H., Krishnamoorthy, M., Sier, D.: Staff scheduling and rostering: a review of applications, methods and models. Eur. J. Oper. Res. 153(1), 3–27 (2004)
Dawndra, J., McLaughlin, M., Gebbens, C., Terhorst, L.: Utilizing a scope and span of control tool to measure workload and determine supporting resources for nurse manager. J. Nurs. Adm. 45(5), 243–249 (2015)
Bhat, U.N.: The general queue G/G/1 and approximations. In: Bhat, U.N. (ed.) An Introduction to Queueing Theory, 2nd edn, pp. 169–183. Birkhauser, Boston (2015)
Gross, D., John, F., Shortle, J., Thompson, M., Harris, C.M.: Fundamentals of Queueing Theory, 4th edn. Wiley-Interscience, Haboken (2008)
Haviv, M.: Queues: A Course in Queueing Theory. Springer, New York (2015)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2016 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this paper
Cite this paper
Cohen, Y., Rozenes, S., Faccio, M. (2016). Modeling a Manager’s Work as a Service Activity. In: Borangiu, T., Dragoicea, M., Nóvoa, H. (eds) Exploring Services Science. IESS 2016. Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing, vol 247. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-32689-4_29
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-32689-4_29
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-32688-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-32689-4
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)