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MD254: e-Service Operations Management

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Call centers have queues of phone calls ... Call center service operations ... different entertainment provided during each subqueue. Telecommunications Services ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: MD254: e-Service Operations Management


1
MD254 e-Service Operations Management
  • Managing Waiting Lines in Traditional Services
    and e-Services

2
Overview
  • Background
  • Queues and Queueing Systems
  • Psychology of Waiting
  • Queues in a Traditional Service
  • Queues in an e-Service
  • Features of Queueing Systems
  • Summary

3
Background
4
Background
  • Waiting lines are a part of any service
  • Physical services have physical waiting lines
  • Call centers have queues of phone calls
  • e-Services have waiting times between when you
    click a URL in your browser and when the
    e-Service returns a web page
  • During that time period, you are waiting in a
    virtual waiting line of peoples requests

5
Background
  • Competitive importance of fast or at least,
    reasonable delivery speed
  • Physical service
  • People can see the waiting line, and this affects
    their behavior and perceptions
  • Call center service operations
  • People end up on hold, which can affect their
    behavior and perceptions
  • e-Service
  • 8-second rule of thumb for delivering web pages
    has gotten steadily faster over time

6
Queues and Queueing Systems
7
Queues and Queueing Systems
  • Queue
  • A line of waiting customers who require service
    from a service system made up of one or more
    servers

8
Queues and Queueing Systems
  • Location of Queues Relative to Customer
  • Customer goes to Server
  • Retailing queue builds up in front of cash
    register
  • Restaurants queue builds up at front door
    customers food order queues in kitchen
  • Server goes to Customer
  • Plumber queue is on a list of destinations to
    visit

9
Queues and Queueing Systems
  • Networks of Queues
  • Queueing Systems are often made up of networks of
    waiting lines
  • Disney World
  • longer queues are partitioned into subqueues
  • different entertainment provided during each
    subqueue
  • Telecommunications Services
  • Phone calls travel across a queueing network of
    phone system devices
  • e-Service
  • Web servers, application servers, database
    servers, and so on, make up a network of queues
    that manage and process a waiting line of
    customers

10
Psychology of Waiting
11
Psychology of Waiting
  • Physical Services
  • People dislike empty time, so it is often good to
    fill up such time in useful ways
  • Service related diversions (i.e., filling out
    forms) can be accomplished during waiting, to
    shorten the eventual service time, and make
    better use of service provider times (e.g.,
    doctors)
  • Customers worry about their place in line, and
    whether theyve been forgotten, so it is often
    good to remind them you have not forgotten
  • Customers have certain expectations about how a
    waiting line will be run, and when this
    expectation is violated (e.g., a later arrival
    being served first), they may get mad
  • Experiences during waiting times are also part of
    the service experience, leading to good or bad
    word of mouth, and retaining or losing the
    customer

12
Psychology of Waiting
  • e-Services
  • Customers cannot usually see the queue of
    customers in front of their service request
    they can only sit there and hope that the next
    web page comes up
  • Difficult to see why service may be slow
  • Often difficult to find non-electronic service
    personnel, to assist one with the e-service
  • Offline activities (services delivered to home,
    delivery of products purchased online) provide
    major portions of perceived service queues
  • Often good to keep customer informed about these

13
Queues in a Traditional Service
14
Queues in a Traditional Service
  • Single Queue, Single Server
  • Single Queue, Multiple Server
  • Multiple Queue, Multiple Server
  • Job Shop
  • Multiple queue, Multiple server
  • Jobs can flow from any server to any other server
  • Batch Flow
  • Jobs flow from server to server in groups
  • Discrete Flow (Assembly) Line
  • Each job individually visits a number of servers
    in a specific order

15
Queues in a Traditional ServiceAn Emergency Room
Gunshot Wound
Priority Queue
Pool of Servers
Broken Arm
Non-Priority Queue
16
Queues in an e-Service
17
Queues in an e-ServiceCommon e-Service Processes
URL Click
HTML Page Web Server
Client Computer
Stage 1
HTML Page
URL Click
CGI Call
Web Server
Client Computer
Common Gateway Interface Program
Stage 2
HTML Page
Results in HTML
URL Click
Calls
Client Computer
Calls
Stage 3
Web Server
Application Server
Database Server
Results in HTML
HTML Page
Database Table
Stage 4
Stage 3 structure may request information
from all sorts of information resources outside
of organization
18
Queues in an e-Service
19
Queues in an e-ServiceA Network of Queues
Queue
Queue
Queue
Queue
Database Server
Load Balancer
Queue
Queue
Web Servers
Application Servers
20
Features of Queueing Systems
21
Features of Queueing Systems
  • Calling population
  • Arrival process
  • Queue configuration
  • Queue discipline
  • Service process

22
Features of Queueing Systems
  • Calling population
  • Composition
  • Homogeneous customers
  • Heterogeneous customers (multiple classes of
    customers)
  • How many groups?
  • Characteristics of groups?
  • Size
  • Finite how many?
  • Infinite

23
Features of Queueing Systems
  • Arrival process
  • The demand for a service has temporal and spatial
    components that determine how demand arrives at
    the service system
  • Nature
  • Discrete/Fixed
  • Scheduled
  • Stochastic/Random
  • Inter-arrival times (period between arrivals) are
    commonly assumed to be distributed exponentially
  • Customer Behaviors
  • Balking seeing length of waiting line, and
    leaving before entering line
  • Reneging leaving the waiting line after being
    in it for a while

24
Features of Queueing Systems
  • Queue configuration
  • The number of queues, their locations, their
    spatial requirements, and their effects on
    customer behavior
  • Single queue vs. multiple queues
  • Queue traffic controller? (bouncer, lady in bank
    at lunchtime yelling out which line is empty)
  • Jockeying behavior customers leave one line for
    another shorter one

25
Features of Queueing Systems
  • Queue discipline
  • A policy established by management to select the
    next customer from the queue for service
  • First-Come, First-Served (FCFS)
  • Person who arrived first goes next
  • Shortest Processing Time
  • Job that will take the shortest time to process
    goes next
  • Priority Based Queueing Disciplines
  • Bouncer at bar lets in the beautiful people
    first rest of us have to wait (or tip heavily
    to get past bouncer) until space is available
    late at night
  • Emergency room helps people with really bad
    injuries first
  • Many, many, many potential policies have been
    developed for different systems

26
Features of Queueing Systems
  • Service process
  • The tasks that must be accomplished to complete
    the process
  • The number of servers
  • The location of servers where the tasks are
    completed
  • The length of time for completing each task

27
Summary
28
Summary
  • All production systems have waiting lines even
    the ones that are scheduled to try to eliminate
    waiting
  • Queueing systems are important in all services
    traditional and e-service
  • Managers must understand how to model the
    traditional and e-services
  • Several important features of queueing systems
    define how queues function
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