Operations Management

BBA
Academic Year 2021-22

Dr. Hasanuzzaman
Assistant Professor
Operations & Information Technology
ICFAI Business School Hyderabad
Waiting Line Management
Waiting Line Management
Waiting Line Management
Waiting Line Management
Waiting Line Management
Why Waiting Line ?
Waiting Line Management – Goal
 Waiting Line – Components
■ Calling Population or Input Source
■ Service Process or Mechanism
■ Queue Discipline
■ Queing Process
Waiting Line – Structure
 Calling Population or Input Source
Calling Population may be characterised by
■ Size
– Finite – Arrival depends on number of customer already in the system
– Infinite – Arrival does not depend on the customer already in the system
■ Arrival Behaviour
– Patient Customer – Waits until served
– Impatient Customer – Wait some time and leave due to certain reason
■ Balking - Customers do not join the queue either by seeing the number of customers already
in service system or estimating the excessive waiting time for desired service
■ Reneging - Customers after joining the queue, wait for sometime in the queue but leave
before being served on account of certain reasons
■ Jockeying - Customers move from one queue to another hoping to receive service more
quickly (a common scene an railway booking window)
 Calling Population or Input Source
Calling Population may be characterised by
■ Arrival Pattern
Static
■ The control depends on the nature of arrival rate (random or constant)
– In random (or unscheduled) arrivals the times are random variable, and hence requires to
understand the average and frequency distribution of the times.
– In both the cases, the arrival process can be described either by the average arrival rate
(average number of arrivals per unit of time) or by the average inter-arrival time (average
time between two consecutive arrivals).
Dynamic
■ Arrival process is controlled by both service facility and customers
■ The service facility adjusts its capacity to match changes in the service intensity, by either
– Varying the staffing levels at different timings of service
– Varying service charges at different timings, or
– Allowing entry with appointments
 Calling Population or Input Source
Calling Population may be characterised by
■ Arrival Time Distribution – Poisson Distribution
– Let n customers arrive during a time interval 0 to t.
– If l is the expected (or average) number of arrivals per unit time, then expected
number of arrivals during a time interval t becomes lt.
– Poisson probability distribution function is given by

𝑒 "#$ 𝜆𝑡 !
𝑃 𝑥 = 𝑛 𝑃! = 𝜆𝑡 =
𝑛!
 Queuing Process
■ The queuing process refers to the number of queues, and their respective lengths.

■ The number of queues single, multiple or priority queues depend upon the layout of a
service system.

■ The length (or size) of the queue depends upon the operational situation such as physical
space, legal restrictions, and attitude of the customers.

■ Finite Queue

– If due to any reason(s), a service system is unable to accommodate more than the
required number of customers at a time , then such queues are called finite (or limited)
source queue.

– Examples of finite source queues are cinema halls, restaurants, etc.

 Queuing Process
■ Infinite Queue

– If a service system is able to accommodate any number of customers at a time, then it is

called an infinite (or unlimited) source queue.

– Example, in a sales department where the customer orders are received, there is no
restriction on the number of orders that can come in so that a queue of any size can
form.
 Queuing Discipline
■ Static

– First come first serve (FCFS)

– Last come first serve (LCFS)

■ Dynamic

– Service in Random Order (SIRO)

– Priority Service

– Preemptive Priority

– Non-preemptive Priority
 Service Mechanism
■ The manner in which customers are serviced and leave the service system

■ It is characterized by

– The arrangement (or capacity) of service facilities

– The distribution of service times

– Server’s Behavior

– Management Policies
The arrangement of service facilities
 The Distribution of Service Times
■ Average service rate is used to measure the service capacity of service facility in terms of
customers served per unit of time.
– If µ is the average service rate, then the expected number of customers served during
time interval 0 to t will be µt.
■ If the service time is exponentially distributed, then the service rate can be shown to be
Poisson distributed.
■ If time at the start of service, is considered as zero, then the probability that service is not
completed by time t is given by
𝑃 𝑥 = 0 𝑃! = µ𝑡 = 𝑒 "%$

■ If the random variable T represents the service time, then the probability of service
completion within time t is given by
𝑃(𝑇 ≤ 𝑡) = 1 – 𝑒 "%$ , 𝑡 ≥ 0
 Average Length of Service Time
§ A fluctuating service time may follow negative exponential probability distribution, and is
denoted by
1
𝐸 𝑇 =
µ
#
Traffic intensity or Average number of customer being served 𝜌 =
%

Note:
■ If CUSTOMER ARRIVALS are Poisson distributed
INTERARRIVAL TIME is Exponentially distributed
■ If SERVICE TIME is Exponentially distributed
SERVICE RATE is Poisson distributed
 Measuring Performance
■ Time-related measures (for the customers)
– 𝑊! - The average (or expected) time an arriving customer has to wait in the queue before being
served.
– 𝑊" - The average (or expected) time an arriving customer spends in the system including waiting
and service
■ Measures related to the number of customers
– Expected number of customers who are in the queue (queue length) for service, Lq
– Expected number of customers who are in the system either waiting in the queue or being
serviced (Ls).
■ Measures related to cost (Service or waiting)
– The average cost needed to operate the system per unit of time?
– Servers (service centres) that are needed to achieve cost effectiveness?
 Measuring Performance
■ Measures related to value of time (both for customers and servers)
– Probability(Pw) that an arriving customer has to wait before being served.
■ It is also called blocking probability.
– Probability(Pr) that a server is busy at any particular point in time.
■ It is the proportion of the time that a server actually spends with the customer, i.e. the
fraction of the time a server is busy
– Probability, Pn (n = 0, 1, . . .. )of n customers being in the queuing system when it is in
steady state condition.
 Transient State or Steady State
■ A service system progresses through a number of changes, since it started working and attains stability after
sometime. Before the start of the service operations it gets influenced by the initial conditions specially by the
number of customers in the system and the elapsed time. This period of transition is termed as transient-state.

■ However, as time passes, the system becomes independent of the initial conditions and of the elapsed time
and enters a steady- state condition.

■ Let Pn (t) be the probability of n customers in the system at time t. In the case of steady-state, we have

lim 𝑝$ 𝑡 = 𝑝$
!→#

lim 𝑝$% 𝑡 = 0
!→#

■ If arrival rate of customers is more than the service rate, then a steady-state cannot be reached regardless of
the length of the elapsed time.
 Relation Among the Performance Measures
■ Expected number of customer in the queue and system

( ( !
λ 𝜆
𝐿& = 6 𝑛𝑃! 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝐿) = 6 𝑛 − 𝑠 𝑃! , P+ = P' 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑃' = 1 −
𝜇 𝜇
' !*&

■ Expected number of customer in the system

𝜆
𝐿& = 𝐿) + 𝐸𝑥𝑝𝑒𝑐𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑛𝑢𝑚𝑏𝑒𝑟 𝑜𝑓 𝑐𝑢𝑠𝑡𝑜𝑚𝑒𝑟 𝑖𝑛 𝑠𝑒𝑟𝑣𝑖𝑐𝑒 = 𝐿) +
𝜇

■ Expected waiting time of the customer in the system

1
𝑊& = 𝐴𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑔𝑒 𝑤𝑎𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑞𝑢𝑒𝑢𝑒 + 𝐸𝑥𝑝𝑒𝑐𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑠𝑒𝑟𝑣𝑖𝑐𝑒 𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒 = 𝑊) +
𝜇
 Relation Among the Performance Measures
■ Probability of being in the system longer than time t

𝑃 𝑇 > 𝑡 = 𝑒 " %,# $ 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑃 𝑇 ≤ 𝑡 = 1 − 𝑃 𝑇 > 𝑡

■ T is the time spent in the system

■ t specific time period, e=2.718

■ Probability of exactly n customer in the system

!
𝜆 𝜆
𝑃! = 1 −
𝜇 𝜇
 Relation Among the Performance Measures
■ Probability that the number of customer in the system, n exceeds a given number, r

-,.
𝜆
𝑃 𝑛>𝑟 =
𝜇

1 1
𝐿& = 𝜆𝑊& 𝑜𝑟 𝑊& = 𝑊) + = 𝐿)
𝜇 𝜆

1 1
𝐿) = 𝐿& − 𝜆𝑊) 𝑜𝑟 𝑊) = 𝑊& − = 𝐿)
𝜇 𝜆

𝜆/
𝐿) =
𝜇 𝜇−𝜆
 Queuing Model
■ Different models in queuing theory are classified by using notations suggested by D.G. Kendall
(1953) in the form (a/b/c). A.M. Lee (1966) added the symbols d and c to the Kendall’s notation.
The standard format used to describe the main characteristics of queues is
{(𝑎/𝑏/𝑐) ∶ (𝑑/𝑒)}

■ where,

– a is the arrivals distribution

– b is the service time (or departures) distribution

– c is the number of service channels (servers)

– d is the maximum number of customers allowed in the system (in queue plus in service)

– e is the queue (or service) discipline.

 Queuing Model – Single Server
■ Model I : {(𝑀/𝑀/1) ∶ (∞/𝐹𝐶𝐹𝑆)} Exponential Service – Unlimited Queue

■ Assumption

– Arrivals are described by Poisson probability distribution and come from an infinite population.

– Single waiting line and each arrival waits to be served regardless of the length of the queue (i.e. infinite
capacity) and no balking or reneging

– Single server and service times follow exponential distribution

– Queue discipline is ‘first-come, first-served’

– Customers arrival is independent but the arrival rate (average number of arrivals) does not change over time.

– The average service rate is more than the average arrival rate.

– M indicates Markovian (Exponential) inter arrival time or service time distribution

 Queuing Model – Single Server
■ Customers arrive at a bakery at an average rate of 18 per hour on weekday mornings. The arrival
distribution can be described by a Poisson distribution with a mean of 18. Each clerk can serve a
customer in an average of three minutes; this time can be described by an exponential distribution
with a mean of 3.0 minutes.

– What are the arrival and service rates?

– Compute the average number of customers being served at any time.

– Suppose it has been determined that the average number of customers waiting in line is 8.1.
Compute the average number of customers in the system (i.e., waiting in line or being
served), the average time customers wait in line, and the average time in the system.

– Determine the system utilization for M = 1, 2, and 3 servers.

 Queuing Model – Single Server
■ An airline is planning to open a satellite ticket desk in a new shopping plaza, staffed by one ticket agent. It is
estimated that requests for tickets and information will average 15 per hour, and requests will have a Poisson
distribution. Service time is assumed to be exponentially dis- tributed. Previous experience with similar
satellite operations suggests that mean service time should average about three minutes per request.
Determine each of the following

– System utilization.

– Percentage of time the server (agent) will be idle.

– The expected number of customers waiting to be served.

– The average time customers will spend in the system.

– The probability of zero customers in the system and the probability of four customers in the system.
 Queuing Model – Single Server
■ Assume a drive-up window at a fast food restaurant. Customers arrive at the rate of 25 per hour.
The employee can serve one customer every two minutes. Assume Poisson arrival and exponential
service rates and a Single Channel Single Phase system. Determine:

– What is the average utilization of the employee?

– What is the average number of customers in line?

– What is the average number of customers in the system?

– What is the average waiting time in line?

– What is the average waiting time in the system?

– What is the probability that exactly two cars will be in the system?