Throbbing between two lives: Resource pooling in service supply chains

Resource pooling is known to benefit performance through reduced congestion, but primarily in settings with homogenous demand. In settings where demand is heterogeneous, pooling can be counter effective. The effects of pooling of staff when demand is heterogeneous and dependent are not known. We present a simulation model based on a service supply chain that delivers Interactive TV to customers. Customers expect high performance in terms of innovativeness and reliability. Based on the results of simulation analysis, we find that when target innovativeness of the service is increased, pooling outperforms not pooling, but the delays that are involved with pooling will make the system and hence its performance unstable. Stable and high performance can be realized through "unbalanced" hiring. This means that a target performance increase in the upstream stage of the chain (innovation), is accompanied by hiring staff in the downstream stages of the chain (QA and operation).