521 words essay on Queuing Theory

This is also known as the waiting line theory. Queueing theory is one of the most common phenomena of modern day life. We see daily that the customers requiring service assembled and wait in queue to receive their turn for service in banks, railway stations, etc. are some other examples in which we can identify the application of queuing theory – i.e., the nature of customers, the type of service they need, the service facilities available etc.

Actually, queuing problem arises whenever the demand for the customer service cannot be perfectly matched by a set of well-defined service facilities. In other words, queue is inevitable when demand for limited services exceeds the service facilities.

Since perfect match cannot be achieved either the customers will have to wait for the service or service facilities will have to wait for customers. It should be remembered that when service facilities will have to wait for customers, this results in idle time.

ADVERTISEMENTS:

When the customers are forced to wait for long- time due to the shortage of services, this may be frustrating the customers and the organisation might lose the customers in the process. Therefore, specific costs are associated with (i) the waiting of customers and (ii) the idle service.

It is interesting to note that these two categories of costs move in opposite directions. For instance, to reduce the cost of customer waiting, service facilities will have to be increased.

This results in increase in the cost of idle service facilities. Conversely, by decreasing the number of service facilities, the cost of customer waiting gets increased but it decreases the cost of idle time facilities.

The fundamental objective of queuing models is to help management in designing a system that minimizes the sum of the cost of customer waiting and the cost of idle facilities. Queuing theory is important because unreasonably long waiting line may result in the loss of customers.

ADVERTISEMENTS:

A queuing model is constructed based on the following assumptions:

The size of calling population is infinite (this means the input source is unlimited, for example customers arriving at the counter to purchase the railway platform ticket is infinite.

The size of calling population is finite when already significant number of customers has entered the queue. Closing hours of booking in the picture theatre is an example of this situation.

There is no balking. This means that all the arriving customers join the queue.

ADVERTISEMENTS:

There is no reneging. This mean all the customers stay inline until served. That is to say, customers exhibit patience till they get the desired service.

The length of queue is finite or infinite depending on the space. The queue is disciplined and the philosophy is that first come, first served.

Rate of service is greater than the rate of arrival of customers. The arrival size depends on the purpose of customers. It may be single, double, multiple or batch.

The queuing models though interesting are frightening because the development and analysis of even the simples queuing model requires highly advanced mathematical and statistical knowledge. But successfully developed queuing models help management satisfy the customers by providing better services.