Somewhat academic related, so I thought this would be the best place to post it. Anyways, I work for a company as a statistician and have been asked for a proper mathematical term for a certain structure, and honestly, I cant think of anything.

We have several groups of people that serve clients. Say group 1, group 2, and group 3. Group 1's primary skill/assignment is the material they encounter day to day with Client 1's business. However, if Group 1 needs some backup that day, Group 2 or Group 3 may have a secondary responsibility/assignment to be capable of providing support.

So, this interchanging structure where each group has a primary skill, but also contains a secondary skill for another group....what would you call such an environment? Say youre a salesman. You company sells 10 products. Your primary responsibility is product#1, but product#1 isnt having a busy day, so youre temporarily assigned to your secondary skill, say product#5.

Everyone has a primary skills but is capable of switching to their secondary skill to help another group when needed.

Any ideas? I was thinking along the lines of hetero/homogenous skills but the two terms are too black and white for this application.

Thanks in advance

12/1/2009 4:56:14 PM

I think you might find some answers in the operations management realm; in particular with regards to capacity (see safety capacity, extra capacity, capacity management). Imagine several automated assembly lines making different products. If the demand for one product spikes, you hope you have enough spare capacity on another line to accommodate it. There is a fine balance between being able to service enough extra capacity and having over capacity. Same thing with employees.

Hope this helps!

12/2/2009 12:53:08 AM

sounds like an rpg to me

12/2/2009 9:11:00 AM

Thanks a lot -- I actually tried to delete this topic within Study Hall (I decided to post it elsewhere). I'll try again though. Thanks for the help and sorry for the double post.

12/2/2009 11:01:49 AM

You can't delete topics

12/2/2009 1:06:41 PM