Patent ID: 7885958

Claim:
A computer-implemented method of organizing hierarchical information for a service, the method comprising: organizing, by a computing device, the hierarchical information into combinations of attribute groupings comprising of node attribute groups and node end-item prompts; sorting, by said computing device, said combinations of attribute groupings in an ascending sequence based on: end-item prompt node values equal to end-item prompt node service time values divided by a product of end-item prompt node demand frequency values and end-item prompt node cost of waiting values; and attribute group node values equal to attribute group node service time values divided by a sum of all of said a products of end-item prompt node demand frequency values and end-item prompt node cost of waiting values that descend from each attribute group node; determining, by said computing device, according to an objective function, potential combinations of the combinations of attribute groupings that implement the service; and selecting, by said computing device, a potential combination of said potential combinations that has a best objective function value based on a relationship between: a ratio of a number of end-item prompts in one potential attribute group set with a least number of end-item prompts as compared to a number of end-item prompts in another attribute group set with a greatest number of end-item prompts; and a ratio of service time weighted number of prompts in the set to the highest service time weighted number of prompts of any feasible set, where said objective function comprises minimizing a total weighted average customer waiting time.