Waiting Line Management

Where the Time Goes

?
In a life time, the average
person will spend:
SIX MONTHS Waiting at stoplights
EIGHT MONTHS Opening junk mail
ONE YEAR Looking for misplaced 0bjects
TWO YEARS
FOUR YEARS
FIVE YEARS
SIX YEARS

Reading E-mail

Doing housework
Waiting in line
Eating

12-2

Waiting Line ..
Understanding waiting lines or queues and learning
how to manage them is one of the most important
areas in operations management. It is basic to creating
schedules, job design, inventory levels, and so on. In
our service economy we wait in line every day, from
driving to work to checking out at the supermarket. We
also encounter waiting lines at factories jobs wait in
lines to be worked on at different machines, and
machines themselves wait their turn to be overhauled.
In short, waiting lines are pervasive.

Waiting lines are non-value added occurrences

Waiting Lines
Often called queuing theory
Waiting lines are common
situations
Useful in both
manufacturing
and service
areas

Service Capacity vs Waiting Line

Trade Off
Goal of queuing
analysis is to
minimize the sum
of two costs
Customer
waiting costs
Service
capacity costs

The Queuing System

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?).

The Queuing System

:Factors
Length
Number of
Lines
Queue
Discipline

Line Structures
Single channel, single phase : This is the simplest type of
waiting line structure.
Single channel, multiphase : A car wash is an illustration
because a series of services (vacuuming, wetting, washing,
rinsing, drying, window cleaning, and parking) is performed
in a fairly uniform sequence.
Multi channel, single phase : Tellers windows in a bank
and checkout counters in high-volume department stores
exemplify this type of structure.
Multi channel, multiphase : This case is similar to the
preceding one except that two or more services are
performed in sequence.
Mixed :Under this general heading we consider two
subcategories: (1) multiple-to single channel structures and
(2) alternative path structures.

Line Structures

Queuing System Designs

A family dentists office
Queue
Service
facility

Arrivals

Departures
after service

Single-channel, single-phase system

A McDonalds dual window drive-through
Queue
Arrivals

Phase 1
service
facility

Phase 2
service
facility

Single-channel, multiphase system

Departures
after service

Queuing System Designs

Most bank and post office service windows

Queue
Arrivals

Service
facility
Channel
1
Service
facility
Channel
2
Service
facility
Channel
3

Multi-channel, single-phase system

Departures
after service

Queuing System Designs

Some college registrations

Queue
Arrivals

Phase 1
service
facility
Channel
1

Phase 2
service
facility
Channel
1

Phase 1
service
facility
Channel
2

Phase 2
service
facility
Channel
2

Multi-channel, multiphase system

Departures
after service

Properties of Some Specific Waiting

Line Models

Probability Distributions
The sources of variation in waiting-line problems come from the random arrivals
of customers and the variations in service times. Each of these sources can be
described with a probability distribution.

Arrival Distribution
Customers arrive at service facilities randomly. The variability of customer
arrivals often can be described by a Poisson distribution, which specifies the
probability that n customers will arrive in T time periods :

for n = 0,1,2.. where

P = probability of n arrivals in T time periods
= average number of customer arrivals per period
e = 2.7183.
The mean of the Poisson distribution is T, and the variance also is T. The
Poisson distribution is a discrete distribution, that is, the probabilities are for a
specific number of arrivals per unit of time.

Probability Distributions
Service Time Distribution
The exponential distribution describes the probability
that the service time of the customer at a particular
facility will be no more than T time periods. The
probability can be calculated by using the formula :

Where ,
= average number of customers completing service time period
t = service time of the customer
T = target service time

Single Server Model

The simplest waiting line model involves a single server and a single line of customers. To further specify
the model, we make the following assumptions :
1. The customer population is infinite and all customers are patient.
2. The customers arrive according to a Poisson distribution, with a mean arrival rate of
3. The service distribution is exponential, with a mean service rate of .
4. The mean service rate exceeds the mean arrival rate.
5. Customers are served on a first-come, first-served basis
6. The length of the waiting line is unlimited.
With these assumptions, we can apply various formulas to describe the operating characteristics of the
system :

Multiple Server Model

With the multiple-server model, customers form a single line and choose one of s servers when one is
available. The service system has only one phase. We make the followng assumptions in addition to
those for single-server model: There are s identical servers, and the service distributon for each server
is exponential, with a mean service time of 1/. It should always be the case that s exceeds .
With these assumptions, we can apply several formulas to describe the operating characteristics of
the service system :

Littles Law
One of the most practical and fundamental laws in
waiting line theory is Littles Law, which relates
the number of customers in a waiting line system to
the arrival rate and the waiting time of customers.
Using the same notation we used for the single
server and multiple server models, Littles Law can
be expressed as L=W or Lq=Wq. This relationship
holds for a wide variety of arrival processes, service
time distributions, and number of servers. The
practical advantage of Littles Law is that you only
need to know two of the parameters to estimate the
third.

Finite Source Model

We now consider a situation in which all but one of the assumptions of the single server
model are approximate. In this case, the customer population is finite, having only N
potential customers. If N is greater than 30 customers, the single server model with the
assumption of an infinite customer population is adequate. Otherwise, the finite source
model is the one to use. The formulas used to calculate the operating characteristics of this
server system include the following :

Measuring Queue
Performance
1. Average time that each customer or object spends in
the queue
2. Average queue length
3. Average time each customer spends in the system
4. Average number of customers in the system
5. Probability that the service facility will be idle
6. Utilization factor for the system
7. Probability of a specific number of customers in the
system