EFFECT OF QUEUING THEORY ON ORGANIZATION PERFORMANCE. A CASE STUDY OF UBA BANK

Abstract

This study seeks to investigate the effect of queuing theory on organization performance. A case study of UBA Bank. Queuing theory is the formal study of waiting in line and is an entire discipline in operations management. This research project will give the reader a general background into queuing theory, its associated performance, and it relationship to customer satisfaction in banking sector. Queuing theory has been used in the past to assess such things as staff schedules, working environment, productivity, customer waiting time, and customer waiting environment. In banks, queuing theory in assessing a multitude of factors such as withdrawal and deposit, customers waiting time, customer time, and staffing level has been a major problem. The study uses regression analysis and model with the help of SPSS in analyzing the data collected through primary and secondary means. The study find out that most customers in UBA bank are not satisfy base on the queue they experience before been attended to and it was base on this that the study recommended an effective and efficient application of queuing theory which can be of particular benefit in banks with high-volume out-customer workloads and/or those that provide multiple points of service. By better understanding queuing theory, service managers can make decisions that increase the satisfaction of all relevant groups-customers, employees, and management.

CHAPTER ONE/INTRODUCTION

Background to the Study

Waiting in lines or queues seems to be a general phenomenon in our day to day life. Think about the many times you had to wait in line in the last month or year and the time and frustration that was associated with those waits. Whether we are in line at the grocery store checkout, the barbershop, the stoplight, bank waiting our turn is part of our everyday life. Queuing theory is the formal study of waiting in line and is an entire discipline within the field of operations management. The purpose of this article is to give the reader a general background into queuing theory and queuing systems, its associated terminology, and how queuing theory relates to customer or customer satisfaction. Also, past and present applications of queuing technology and what staffs can do to manage customer or customer queues more effectively will be discussed. Finally, automated queuing technology will be described.

Queuing theory utilizes mathematical models and performance measures to assess and hopefully improve the flow of customers through a queuing system. Queuing theory has many applications and has been used extensively by the service industries. Queuing theory has been used in the past to assess such things as staff schedules, working environment, productivity, performance, customers waiting time, and customers waiting environment. In bank, queuing theory can be applied to assess a multitude of factors such as registration fill-time, customer waiting time, customer counseling time, and receptionists and technician staffing levels. The application of queuing theory may be of particular benefit in receptionists with high-volume out customer workloads and/or those that provide multiple points of service, such as those in the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), Department of Defense (DoD), university health systems, and managed care organizations. Problematic queuing systems (ie, long lines) can lead to the customer’s perceptions of excessive, unfair, or unexplained waiting time—resulting in significant detrimental effects on the customer’s overall satisfaction with the service transaction.

Waiting in lines seems to be part of our everyday life. At the bank, filling station, bus stop, or in the canteen, “waiting our turn”. Queues form when the demand for a service exceeds its supply (Kandemir-Cavas and Cavas, 2007). In banks, customers can wait minutes or hours before been attended to. For many customer or customers, waiting in lines or queuing is annoying (Obamiro, 2003) or negative experience (Scotland, 1991). The unpleasant experience of waiting in line can often have a negative effect on the rest of a customer’s experience with a particular bank. The way in which managers address the waiting line issue is critical to the long term success of their firms (Davis et al, 2003)

Queuing has become a symbol of inefficiency of publicly funded bank in the world and Nigeria is not an exception. Managing the length of the line is one of the challenges facing most banks. A few of the factors that are responsible for long waiting lines or delays in providing service are: lack of passion and commitment to work on the part of the bank staff (Belson1988) overloading of available staff, bank officials attending to customers in more than one section etc. These put bank managers under stress and tension, hence tends to dispose off a customer without attending to their needs, which often leads to customer dissatisfaction (Babes and Sarma, 1991). This paper is based on the understanding that most of these difficulties can be managed by using queuing model to determine the waiting line performance such as: average arrival rate of expectant, average service rate expectant, system utilization factor, cost of service and the probability of a specific number of customers in the system. The purpose of this study is to provide insight into the general background of queuing theory and its associated organization performance, and how queuing theory can be used to model good service delivery and organization performance of a UBA BankGwagwalada Abuja, Nigeria. The resultant performance variables can be used by the policy makers to increase efficiency, improve the quality of service and performance, as well as decrease cost in bank organizations and services

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