Capacity and demand management

This free course, Capacity and demand management, is part of the series focusing on leadership, decision-making and communication in the context of policing within the community. This course focuses on the use of data to make decisions, using actions taken in managing capacity and demand as the applied example.The course uses examples not only from policing but also many other public and private sector services to show how data might be used to establish demand patterns and manage demand. The capacity management strategies of ‘level’ and ‘chase’ are explained. You will also gain an insight into the underlying causes of waits and delays, with an illustration of queue theory.This course was produced by The Open University in association with the Police Service of Northern Ireland. You can find out more on courses from this series on the Community engagement and policing page.

• Introduction
• 1 Criminological perspectives of demand
• 1 Criminological perspectives of demand
• 2 Crime pattern theory
• 2 Crime pattern theory
• 3 Managerial perspectives of demand
• 3 Managerial perspectives of demand
• 4 Policing decision-making
• 4 Policing decision-making
• 5 Understanding time perspectives with capacity and demand decisions
• 5 Understanding time perspectives with capacity and demand decisions
• 6 Demand Analysis: four components of demand
• 6 Demand Analysis: four components of demand
• 7 Understanding seasonality
• 7 Understanding seasonality
• 7.1 Special events
• 8 Forecasting methods
• 8 Forecasting methods
• 9 Level and chase capacity strategies
• 9 Level and chase capacity strategies
• 10 Visualising your own demand
• 10 Visualising your own demand
• 11 Why do we have queues?
• 11 Why do we have queues?
• 12 Is some demand unnecessary?
• 12 Is some demand unnecessary?
• 13 Conclusion
• 13 Conclusion
• References
• Acknowledgements