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.
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.
Pour utiliser ContactCenters au DIRO sous Linux, aller ICI.
ContactCenters can be downloaded and installed for non-commercial use.
See the download page.
E. Buist, ``
Simulation de centres de contacts'', Ph.D thesis, Département
d'Informatique et de Recherche Opérationnelle, Université de Montréal,
January 2009.
E. Buist, W. Chan, and P. L'Ecuyer,
``
Speeding up Call Center Simulation and Optimization
by Markov Chain Uniformization'', 2008. E. Buist, ``Simulation de centres de contacts'', report
for oral pre-doctoral evaluation, Département
d'Informatique et de Recherche Opérationnelle, Université de Montréal,
August 2007.
P. L'Ecuyer and E. Buist,
``
On the Interaction Between Stratification and Control Variates,
with Illustrations in a Call Center Simulation'',
Journal of Simulation, 2008, 2, 29-40.
P. L'Ecuyer and E. Buist,
``Variance Reduction in the Simulation of Call Centers'',
Proceedings of the 2006 Winter Simulation Conference,
IEEE Press, 2006, 604-613.
E. Buist, ``Conception et implantation d'une bibliothèque pour la
simulation de centres de contacts'', master's thesis, Département
d'Informatique et de Recherche Opérationnelle, Université de Montréal,
August 2005. E. Buist and P.
L'Ecuyer, ``A Java
Library for Simulating Contact Centers'', Proceedings of the 2005
Winter Simulation Conference, to appear.Any user of ContactCenters must agree with the licence of ContactCenters.
If you find a bug or if you want to suggest improvements, send mail to: simul@iro.umontreal.ca.