Patent ID: 8200519

Claim:
A method for managing service facilities in a service enterprise comprising: defining a management area of size “p” by “q” comprising a range of 1 to “n” service facilities served by a fixed service call capacity of a size “m”; calculating, by a computer processor, over the range of 1 to n, the following values: a restocking cost, for each value of n being considered, equal to the sum of the values of [(24/L) times C s ] for all service facilities for that particular value of n, wherein L is the expected life in hours of the respective service facility, 24 is the number of hours in a day, and C s is a cost per stock-out for the respective service facility; a driving cost, for each value of n being considered, based on the size of the management area in which the n service facilities are located; a management area cost, for each value of n being considered, equal to the sum of the restocking cost and the driving cost for each value of n; and an integer value of n within the range of 1 to n associated with the lowest management area cost (herein, n opt ); and establishing the service territory with n opt management areas.