Queue Management System

ABSTRACT

Automated queue management system is a system that helps service provider to manage customer in efficient way. The system can ease the customer flow management which is useful for manager of the service provider. The purpose of this project is to develop an Automated Queue Management System for organizing queuing system that can analyze the queue status and take decision which customer to be served first. This project focuses more on the banks queuing system, different queuing algorithm approaches which are used in banks to serve customer and the average waiting time. This queuing architecture model can switch between different scheduling algorithms according to the testing result i.e. the average waiting time by using two different queue control systems, which have developed. There are several process undergo, which control by Intel Galileo Microcontroller that is software-compatible with the Arduino software development environment. Finally, the systems have been tested under different conditions to evaluate its performance.

CHAPTER ONE

1.0                                                        INTRODUCTION

A queue management system is used to control queues. Queues of people form in various situations and locations in a queue area.

Background nowadays, customer service oriented companies facing difficulties of lengthy queues. These problems often occurred in the banks, post office and airport and it became worsen when the time reached peak hour. The improper management of such queues will cause tension and stress among customers and employees. Customers will tend to shift to other service companies that provide better services and it reduced job satisfaction of the employees.

According to Bain & Company net, a global management –consulting firm, “a customer is four times more likely to defect to a competitor if the problem is service related than price or product related”. Moreover, Lee Resources International net, a general business consulting stated that for “every customer complaint there are 26 other unhappy customers who have remained silent”. Thus, any companies need a provide good services in order to attract customers to attain sustainability doing business.

In general, queuing is a line of people waiting to be serve and the movement is from a central to a specific place. Thus, a queue management system must handle and organized queue formation in the most efficient way.

1.2                                                PURPOSE OF THE STUDY

The purpose of this research is to design and built an automatic queue management system that has more flexibility when dealing with its surrounding.

1.3                                               OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY

Management is to get powerful indicators in the form of reporting which can be used to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the business operations internally and externally in terms of dealing with customers.

The objectives of this project to:

1) Investigate the current approaches for queue management system.

2) Design a working system for automated queue control system.

3) Implement the system using mechatronic solution.

4) Evaluate the system for effectiveness.

1.4                                                      AIM OF THE STUDY

This study Organizes, Engages and Measures waiting and disconnected service areas and enhance customer experience at key touch points. Excessive queuing and waiting are among the leading causes of dissatisfaction in banks, retail stores, hospitals and government institutions. The aim of this research is to develop an Automated Queue Management System in a way that solve queuing problems.

1.5                                           SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

This study Decrease customer waits times, improve your service efficiency, and increase your revenues with enterprise queue management solutions. This study is important of helping organizations improve their customer flow and manage queues with virtual and linear queuing solutions, queue displays, appointment bookings, queuing app, queue information, and sophisticated queue management software.

1.6                                            APPLICATION OF THE STUDY

Benefits to the Customers: Upon the arrival to the organization the customer goes directly to the kiosk machine, reads a range of offered services and pushes a touch-sensitive screen and prints the ticket with his queue number. Now your customer may wait until he will be called without being to wait in the queue worrying about other people overtaking them. Customers will also have an idea about the estimated waiting time for the service they have selected which is calculated on the basis of the different indicators such as average waiting time for customers for that service since morning and in the light of average waiting time of the previous days.

Benefits to the Agents: First of all while setting up the system each work counter will be identified and numbered. The Agents will have a clear picture of the customers in the queue waiting to be served through the figures shown in the system. These figures will be updated on real time clearing updating the agents about the change in the customer flowing in and out of the organization. They will use the customer flow management system to call the next customer in queue and this is the main function of the queue manager. The System will main the history of the previous work sessions of each agent and the agent can go through this history in order to access the number of tickets they have served and their average serving time. These indicators will allow the agents to assess their performance and analyze their efficiency while serving different services.

Benefits to the Management: The main objective behind spending money on MIS and queue management system by any Top Management is to get powerful indicators in the form of reporting which can be used to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the business operations internally and externally in terms of dealing with customers, suppliers and other business associates.

Queue Management System records the numbers of tickets being printed by the customers that visit the organization every day. This automated ticketing system also keeps record of time each customer has to wait in the queue and the time taken to serve the customer. This time record keeping is done on the service basis, counter basis and agent basis.

The data collected through this record keeping operation, allows the active queue management system to generate very powerful reports on daily, weekly, monthly, yearly or any other periodic basis. This data is useful for the employer who cares about customer convenience and the work quality of employees. The system provides reports on every employee, informs how many customers have visited per day, week, month as well how many and what kind of operations have been performed. Statistical data helps in taking decisions on reduction or increase of the number of employees and on distribution and co-ordination of operations carried out by employees

In addition to providing such critical information to managers, Queue Management System also directly improves the quality and level of service. Agents are more likely to provide efficient, high quality service when being monitored (much like similar situations in almost any production facility or call center). Customers are more satisfied when the waiting line is kept in order by a clear logical system.

1.6                             BENEFITS AND ADVANTAGES OF THE STUDY

• Organizes your lines and enforces business rules – appointments, priorities and so forth.
• Reduces queue length, as well as perceived and actual wait times thus improving customer satisfaction.
• Entertains waiting customers with integrated digital signage.
• Enables performance and service level analysis, thus helping management streamline customer service and reduce operation costs.

1.7                                                   SCOPE OF THE STUDY

The Automated Queue Management System is design to manage certain customers with single department and multiple counters. There are three operations, which customers can choose i.e. Service A, Service B, Service C and three customer counters that provide services i.e. Counter 1, Counter 2 and Counter 3. The related information of this system will be displayed at the display module i.e. Liquid Crystal Display and sound module i.e. Buzzer.

1.8                                                  PROBLEM STATEMENT

Many companies provide queue management system for controlling queues of people in various situations and locations in a queue area. Most of the techniques used are manually for a small space and simple flow. On the other hand, automated queue management system deal for a larger space and complex flow. These can be see widely used in banks, hospitals or clinics and post offices.

Bylayat, Nahid, Moqbull and Habibur (2011) had designed a Micro controller Based Electronic Queue Control Systems. The aim of that designed systems is to maintain a queue with order and efficiency. There are two different queue control systems which have been implemented with slightly different queue control systems which have been implemented with slightly different features in the research which are EQC system-1 and EQC system-2, EQC system-1displays token number and service counter number whereas EQC system-2 display token number individually in each service counter with separate displays.

The fundamental of the designed system is similar like the one, which has been use broadly todays in queue area. The flexibility is that customers have the flexibility of being processed by more than one service point and service points possess the capability of processing more than one customer class. However, the system cannot integrate to the number of customers per certain time. The system cannot change and remain it is when there are not much customers in the waiting area and when there are crowded of customers in the waiting are.