ARMS: An automated resource management system for British Telecommunications plc

Accurate demand forecasting combined with resource planning is critical to a company’s performance and profitability. This paper describes ARMS (automated resource management system), an integrated system developed for the customer service operations of British Telecommunications plc to help with the operational/tactical planning and deployment of the company’s 20,000-strong field engineer workforce. ARMS integrates a forecasting tool with a resource planning tool and a resource balancing tool providing an end-to-end automated resource management solution for the organisation. OR techniques are used throughout the system, including ARIMA for forecasting, constraint satisfaction for problem modelling, heuristic search for problem solving thus demonstrating the value and relevance of OR in solving today’s business problems.