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Waiting Line Management
Waiting Line Management
Economics
The Queuing System Waiting Line Models Approximating Customer Waiting Time Computer Simulation of Waiting Lines Conclusion
The
central problem in virtually every waiting line situation is a trade-off decision. The manager must weigh the added cost of providing more rapid service (more traffic lanes, additional landing strips, more checkout stands) against the inherent cost of waiting.
The following are some useful suggestions for managing queues that go beyond the quantitative waiting line models.
1 Determine an acceptable waiting time for your customers. 2 Try to divert your customers attention when waiting. 3 Inform your customers of what to expect. 4 Keep employees not serving the customers out of sight. 5 Segment customers. 6 Train your servers to be friendly.
The
queuing system consists essentially of three major components: (1) the source population and the way customers arrive at the system, (2) the servicing system, and (3) the condition of the customers exiting the system (back to source population or not?),
i n i t e P o p u l a t i o n A finite population refers to the limited-size customer pool that will use the service and, at times, form a line. I n f i n i t e P o p u l a t i o n An infinite population is large enough in relation to the service system so that the population size caused by subtractions or additions to the population does not significantly affect the system probabilities.
When describing a waiting system, we need to define the manner in which customers or the waiting units are arranged for service.
Waiting line formulas generally require an arrival rate, or the number of units per period(such as an average of one every six minutes). A constant arrival distribution is periodic, with exactly the same time between successive arrivals. In productive systems, the only arrivals that truly approach a constant interval period are those subject to machine control. Much more common are variable (random) arrival distributions.
ExponentialDistribution The probability function is f (t) = et where is the mean number of arrivals per time period.
PoissonDistribution
A patient arrival is one who waits as long as necessary until the service facility is ready to serve him or her. There are two classes of impatient arrivals. Members of the first class arrive, survey both the service facility and the length of the line, and then decide to leave. Those in the second class arrive, view the situation, join the waiting line, and then, after some period of time, depart. The behavior of the first type is termed balking, while the second is termed reneging.
The queuing system consists primarily of the waiting line(s) and the available number of servers.
Factors
to consider with waiting lines include the line length, number of lines, and queue discipline.
ServiceTimeDistribution Another important feature of the waiting structure is the time the customer or unit spends with the server once the service has started. Waiting line formulas generally specify service rate as the capacity of the server in number of units per time period and not as service time, which might average five minutes each. A constant service time rule states that each service takes exactly the same time.
LineStructures 1 Single channel, single phase 2 Single channel, multiphase. 3 Multichannel, single phase. 4 Multichannel, multiphase. 5 Mixed.
EXIT Once a customer is served, two exit fates are possible: (1) The customer may return to the source population and immediately become a competing candidate for service again or (2) there may be a low probability of reservice.
There are more types of models than these four, but the formulas and solutions become quite complicated, and those problems are generally solved using computer simulation
Whats nice about the approximation is that it does not assume a particular arrival rate or
service distribution. All that is needed is the mean and standard deviation of the interarrival time and the service time. What we need..
Some waiting line problems that seem simple on first impression turn out to be extremely difficult or impossible to solve. When a series of services is performed in sequence where the output rate of one becomes the input rate of the next, we can no longer use the simple formulas. This is also true for any problem where conditions do not meet the requirements of the equations
Waiting line problems both challenge and frustrate those who try to solve them. The basic objective is to balance the cost of waiting with the cost of adding more resources. For a service system this means that the utilization of a server may be quite low to provide a short waiting time to the customer. One main concern in dealing with waiting line problems is which procedure or priority rule to use in selecting the next product or customer to be served. Many queuing problems appear simple until an attempt is made to solve them. This technical note has dealt with the simpler problems. When the situation becomes more complex, when there are multiple phases, or where services are performed only in a particular sequence, computer simulation is necessary to obtain the optimal solution.