THE QUEUING THEORY

A C A S E S T U DY R E V I E W
P R E S E N T E D B Y J AYA N N WA LT E R S
U N I V E R S I T Y O F T E C H N O L O G Y, J A M A I C A
FA C U LT Y O F E N G I N E E R I N G A N D C O M P U T I N G
 WHAT IS THE QUEUING THEORY ?
• Important part of operations and a valuable tool
for the operations manage
• Useful in both manufacturing and service areas
• Analysis of queues in terms helps us to understand service
systems , maintenance activities, and shop-floor control
activities.
Arrivals or inputs to the system. These have
characteristics such as population size, behavior,
and a statistical distribution. THE THREE
PARTS OF A
Queue discipline, or the waiting line itself.
Characteristics of the queue include whether it QUEUING
is limited or unlimited in length and the
discipline of people or items in it. SYSTEM
The service facility. Its characteristics include its
design and the statistical distribution of service
times.
QUEUING SYSTEMS
 MEASURING THE QUEUE’S PERFORMANCE

Average time that Average time that

Average number
each customer or Average queue each customer
of customers in
object spends in length. spends in the
the system.
the queue. system

Probability of a
Probability that
Utilization factor specific number of
the service facility
for the system. customers in the
will be idle.
system.
MODEL A (M/M/1): SINGLE-CHANNEL QUEUING MODEL

Poisson Arrivals and Exponential Service Times

Arrivals are served on a first-in, first-out (FIFO) basis, and

every arrival waits to be served, regardless of the length of
the line or queue.

Arrivals are independent of preceding arrivals, but the

average number of arrivals (arrival rate) does not change
over time
 MODEL A (M/M/1): SINGLE-CHANNEL QUEUING
MODEL
Arrivals are described by a Poisson probability distribution and come from
an infinite population

Service times vary from one customer to the next and are independent of
one another, but their average rate is known.

Service times occur according to the negative exponential probability

distribution.
The service rate is faster than the arrival rate.
MEASURING THE QUEUE’S PERFORMANCE
CASE STUDY 1- SERVICE INDUSTRY
• Queuing Process and Its Application to Customer
Service Delivery (A Case study of Fidelity Bank
Plc, Maiduguri)
• H. R. Bakari1 , H. A. Chamalwa1 and A. M. Baba
• University of Maiduguri, Nigeria
• Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University, Bauchi, Nigeria)
• International Journal of Mathematics and Statistics -
January. 2014
 DESCRIPTION OF PROBLEM
• The financial sector in Nigeria has witness significant reforms in
recent times all in an effort to maximize profit, reduce cost ad
satisfy customers optimally in the most generally acceptable
international standard.
• There are very long waiting lines of customers to be serviced
either at the Automated Teller Machine (ATM) or within the
banking hall.
 DESCRIPTION OF PROBLEM
• ATM are adopted so as to reduce waiting time., offers
considerable ease to both the bank and their customers;
as it enables customers to make financial transactions at
more convenient times and locations, during and after
banking hours.
 DESCRIPTION OF PROBLEM
• Customers spend a considerable time before they are finally
served.
• It is appropriate to attempt to minimize the length of the queue
rather than to eliminate it completely; complete elimination may
be infeasible
• Assist the management of the Bank in making certain decisions
in an effort minimize the time a customer spends in a service
facility.
 GOAL/OBJECTIVES
• Examine the performance characteristics of the Fidelity bank Plc WestEnd,
Maiduguri ATM service point.
• Number of arrivals
• service time (the time it takes for one server to complete customer’s
service),
• the average number of customers in the system,
• the average time a customer spends in the system.
• Use results to evaluate the performance of the service mechanism and to
assess Customer satisfaction.
 DEFINITION OF KEY TERMS
• Automatic Teller Machine- a machine that dispenses cash or performs
other banking services when an account holder inserts a bank card.
• Poisson Distribution-a discrete frequency distribution which gives the
probability of a number of independent events occurring in a fixed time.
• Queuing process- defined in introduction
• Traffic Intensity- The ratio of the time during which a facility is
occupied (continuously or cumulatively) to the time this facility is
available for occupancy
 DATA COLLECTION
• The data for this study was collected from primary source and is
limited to the ATM service point of Fidelity Bank Plc located in West-
End, Maiduguri.
• Data was collected by observation, in which the number of customers
arriving at the facility was recorded, as well as each customer’s arrival
and service time respectively.
• The assistance of a colleague was sought in recording the service time
while the researcher records arrival time. –limitation
DATA COLLECTION
• The period for the data collection was during busy working
hours (i.e. 8:00am to 4:00pm) and for a period of ten (10)
working days.
• Based on the system’s arrival and service pattern, and the
assumptions made during data collection, the M/M/1 queuing
system was used to analyze the data collected using Micro Soft
computer package.
 METHODOLOGY
• 1. Select ATM to be studied.
• 2. Collect data for each workstation.
• 3. Analyze the arriving and leaving data
• Use queueing theory to calculate the average arrival rate
and the average service rate
 METHODOLOGY
• Use the Microsoft software package and queuing theory to calculate :
• Traffic Intensity
• the average number of customers in the system, L
• The average length of the queue, Lq
• The average time a customer spends in the system, W
• The average time a customer spends in the queue, Wq
• The probability that a customer spends more than t units of time in the
system, W(t)
• The probability that a customer spends more than t unit of time in the
queue, Wq(t)
METHODOLOGY
RESULTS
RESULTS
 RESULTS
• Traffic Intensity and Measures of Effectiveness The traffic intensity
and measures of effectiveness are calculated using an MS60
software package. The output is given below:-
• From the results above, the average number of customers in the
system, L =22
• The average length of the queue, Lq = 21
• The average time a customer spends in the system, W = 1.1494
The average time a customer spends in the queue, Wq = 1.1002
 RESULTS
• The probability that a customer spends more than t units of time
in the system, W(t) = 0.0428
• The probability that a customer spends more than t unit of time
in the queue, Wq(t) = 0.9572
• Results from the study revealed that the queue is quite long and
as such customers that come to the ATM would have to wait too
long before they are serviced by the ATM.
• Observations also showed that due to network complexities the
service rate is relatively slow
 OPTIMIZATION/IMPROVEMENTS
• Deploying more ATM’s to the banks’ premises,
• The bank however added that it could only afford one additional ATM for the time
being.
• Thus, with the bank agreeing to deploy one additional service point, and
considering a service pattern of single queue, multiple servers in parallel, the
output of the M/M/S :(∞/FCFS) where S=2 is given as:
 OPTIMIZATION/IMPROVEMENTS
• Comparatively, the measures of effectiveness for an M/M/2 :(
∞/FCFS) puts the traffic intensity at 45%,
• Average number of customers in the system at approx. 5
• while the average number of customers in the queue is 4.
• customer spends an average of 0.063 hours in the system while
queue waiting time for a customer is 0.014 hours on the average.
 LIMITATIONS/CHALLENGES
• The cost for implementing the additional ATM/ servers was a
constraint in the system. The bank could only afford one additional
ATM , so the researchers only simulated data for an additional
ATM.
• Timeframe for data collection- for a period of ten (10) working
days.
• Only one ATM was analyzed
• One person logged arrival timed logged one person departure
time.
 RECOMMENDATIONS
• Conduct Cost Analysis as well as Queueing Theory Analysis for
implementing s>2 servers to assess the economical and service
benefit of different situations in an effort to select the optimum
one.
• Repeat study to get additional data to increase internal validity of
data.
• Repeat study at a different ATM to see if similar patter exists in
an effort to establish external validity of results.
 PERSONAL REFLECTIONS/OBSERVATIONS
• The findings indicate that the system is highly
utilized and means that arrival comes at a
faster rate than the system can accommodate
 PERSONAL REFLECTIONS/OBSERVATIONS
• The model assumed a steady state system however aspects of the
system may have been transient in nature.
• One ATM in was analyzed using ten samples- hence internal and
validity , lacks external validity
• The ATM system service time/ down time of the ATM was not
factored in the analysis.
• Use of Monte Carlo Simulation to account for uncertainties in the
service and interarrival times noted in the analysis.
 CASE STUDY 2- MANUFACTURING INDUSTRY
• The Application Queuing Theory in Multi-Stage
Production Line

• H. R. Bakari1 , H. A. Chamalwa1 and A. M. Baba

• University of Maiduguri, Nigeria
• Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University, Bauchi, Nigeria)
• International Journal of Mathematics and Statistics -January. 2014
 DESCRIPTION PROBLEM
• Queuing Theory in manufacturing process -the study and
simulation of models to predict the behavior of the
Manufacturing process which attempt to provide services
for randomly arising demands in manufacturing work
station.
• Make decisions about the waiting line which lead to
better productivity.
 DESCRIPTION OF PROBLEM
• Queuing theory shows how cycle time is related to
utilization of machine and statistic of inter-arrival
time and service.
• These analyses provide means and predicting the
average cycle time in steady state condition.
• By knowing the cycle time, work in progress can be
determined.
 DESCRIPTION OF PROBLEM
• The main purpose of application Queuing Theory in manufacturing
industries having an assembly processes is to model the assembly
process in manufacturing plant by using an appropriate analytical model
of Queuing Theory.
• Certain importance measures of this model will be derived and can
serve as comparison with the standard data available in the company.
• Important performance of queuing model will be determined as a guide
to increase efficiency of each workstations and suggestion to increase
the performance of each work station.
 DESCRIPTION OF PROBLEM
Application of Queuing Theory in Company Z. The
company produces Canon B. battery lid (CD3-3836-
00) as a cover to place battery in camera.
• Due to increasing Product Demand, the company
needs to examine the efficiency and other
parameters of production line to produce Canon B.
PRODUCTION LINE DIAGRAM
 GOALS\OBJECTIVES
• To model a production line of assembly process in a
manufacturing plant by using an appropriate analytical
model of Queuing Theory.

• To examine the important performance of production line

by using the developed queuing model, so that the
performance improvement of production line can be
achieved.
 DEFINITION OF KEY TERMS
• Manufacturing- The making of articles on a large scale using
machinery; industrial production.
• Performance Measurement- Performance measurement is
generally defined as regular measurement of outcomes and results,
which generates reliable data on the effectiveness and efficiency of
programs.
• Production Line- An arrangement in a factory in which a thing being
manufactured is passed through a set linear sequence of mechanical or
manual operations.
• Queuing Theory- ALREADY DEFINED
 DATA COLLECTION
• The data was collected from the primary source via observations of the
operations via 10 samples.

• The data collected are throughput rate number of operator, and number
of parts that arrives and leaves during part processing. Data for the
number of parts that arrives and leaves are
• Collected at least at amount of ten samples to make the data is possible
to be analyzed by Chi-Squared Goodness Test.
• Based on the system’s arrival and service pattern, and the assumptions
made during data collection, the M/M/1 queuing system was used to
analyze the data collected using Micro Soft computer package.
 METHODOLOGY
• 1. Select a production line to be studied.
• 2. Collect data for each workstation.
• 3. Analyze the arriving and leaving data by Chi-Squared
Goodness Test to determine its variable distribution
(Exponential or Poisson distribution).
 METHODOLOGY
• 4. Conduct performance measures of each workstation by using
equations based on Queuing theory.
• The performance measures need to be measured are:
• utilization factor (ρ), percentage of workstation idle time,
• number of parts in system ( s L ),
• number of parts in queue ( q L ), w
• waiting time spent in queue ( q W ),
• waiting time spent in system ( ), and task time.
 METHODOLOGY
• 5 Determine the efficiency of each workstation.
• 6. Make validation of the task time value resulted
at step (4) by comparing it with the task time
value based on the company database.
RESULTS
RESULTS
RESULTS
OPTIMIZATION/ IMPROVEMENTS
• Increasing the number of operators that manually operate this
workstation from 5 to 10
• Efficiency of this workstation was only 37.78% when it was
operated by five operators and 99.94% when it was operated
by ten operators.
 OPTIMIZATION/IMPROVEMENTS
• Therefore, it is better for the company to hire at least ten
operators to get a maximum efficiency. As informed before,
currently there are 5 workers.
 LIMITATIONS/CHALLENGES
Ten additional operators were recommended but the researchers did not do a cost
analysis or analyzed how this would impact operating cost of the company as it may be a
constraint .

Model was steady state

Model was purely analytical in nature and did not incorporate any simulation models that
is often used with Queuing theory

One of Few Research that conducted analysis in Multi Stage Production Line so limited
literature was available on topic
Insufficient data given re application of chi squared method.
 RECOMMENDATIONS
• Conduct Cost Analysis of System to ascertain impact of hiring
5 new operators on business model
• Conduct model to account for transient behavior
• Employ simulation in model.
• More research needs to be contacted in the are of multistage
Production line queuing.
PERSONAL REFLECTIONS/OBSERVATIONS
• Reliability analysis was not taken into consideration , equipment downtime ,
equipment repair, maintenance and how it may affect the wait time if individual
tasks and total wait time
• Risk Analysis could have been conducted using Monte Carlo Simulation to get a
better understanding of the risks involved in each phase and how they impact
the total service time of the operations
• Sensitivity Analysis could then be conducted to indicate the binding constraints
and impact of each variable on total service time
•
 PERSONAL
REFLECTIONS/OBSERVATIONS
• Operators are humans and the total service time between
operators may be different
• More operators does not mean the system will improve in that way
• Learning curve for new operators
• Individual assessment of each operators performance in
combination with a sensitivity analysis
• 99.4% efficiency – equipment fatigue
PERSONAL REFLECTIONS/OBSERVATIONS
• The study proved to be of value to the company as the
information will assess the company in future planning.

• The study is also important because it examines multi-stage

production line in manufacturing industry by queuing theory
approach , as such it is one of a few such studies to do this.
 CONCLUSION
• The Queuing Theory is important in analyzing systems in the
manufacturing and service industries .
Alot from Little!
Let us be the change!