ContactCenters: Contact Center Simulation library

What is ContactCenters?

ContactCenters is a pure Java library for writing contact center simulators. It supports multi-skill and blend contact centers with complex and arbitrary routing, dialing policies, and arrival processes. The programmer can alter the simulation logic in many ways, without modifying the source code of the library. A simulator can inter-operate with other libraries, e.g., for optimization and statistical analysis. ContactCenters also provides a generic simulator that can be used for many blend and multi-skill call centers.

The library was developed in the Département d'Informatique et de Recherche Opérationnelle (DIRO), at the Université de Montréal. The development of the library started in 2003 as the master's thesis of Eric Buist, and continued as part of his Ph.D. thesis, all under the supervision of Pierre L'Ecuyer.

The development of ContactCenters was partly financed by Bell Canada and NSERC. People from Bell Canada also contributed with feedbacks on the generic simulator which was built using the library.

ContactCenters contains the following elements:

The next section describes the system requirements for ContactCenters. We then give indications on how to download the library and to install it under Windows or GNU/Linux. The remaining sections of this page give documentation, and license information.

System requirements

The only system requirement for ContactCenters is a Java Virtual Machine (JVM) complying with the Java 6 language, virtual machine, and API specifications. Any other required library is included with the download of ContactCenters. The recommended JVM implementation is Oracle's Java Development Kit Standard Edition which includes the virtual machine (Java Runtime Environment) as well as the necessary tools to create Java programs.

If only the generic simulator is used (i.e., no Java programming), Oracle's Java Runtime Environment is sufficient to run ContactCenters; the Java Development Kit, which includes the runtime, is not needed in that case.

The library and generic simulator can be used on any platform for which the Java Virtual Machine is available. This includes Microsoft Windows, most distributions of GNU/Linux, but also Mac OS X, Solaris, and many other flavors of UNIX. However, we have tested ContactCenters on Windows and GNU/Linux only.

Utiliser ContactCenters au DIRO sous Linux

Pour utiliser ContactCenters au DIRO sous Linux, aller ICI.

Downloading ContactCenters

ContactCenters can be downloaded and installed for non-commercial use.

See the download page.

Publications

Licence

Any user of ContactCenters must agree with the licence of ContactCenters.

Copyright (c) 2003-2008 Eric Buist and Pierre L'Ecuyer, all rights reserved.

ContactCenters may be used freely for personal use, for research purposes or in a non-commercial environment. Please contact the authors of the library for any commercial use.

Contact us

If you find a bug or if you want to suggest improvements, send mail to: simul@iro.umontreal.ca.