Extension of Yield Management based Decision Support Systems to continuous and hybrid environments

Resumen

Yield Management based Decision Support Systems are generally found in discrete, off-line environments, in which the time lapsed between the reservation and the execution date is measured in days or weeks. This paper analyzes their applicability when the process involved is continuous, thus decisions have to be taken in real time, with reservation / allocation taking place only seconds before the execution time, as when allocating customer calls to operators in a call center. Some conceptual differences are analyzed, along with the modeling activities required to render YM-type approaches applicable in those environments. Given the short decision times, the DSS must interact in closed loop with the environment. The forecasting subsystem must thus be fed automatically in real time with the demand evolution; the perishable asset availability schedule and the current reservations backlog must also be updated without human interventions, and all these subsystems must be tightly integrated with the YM based DSS subsystem. Keywords: Yield management. Continuous environments. DSS. Dynamic systems