Queuing Theory
Categories: Financial Theory
It’s true: even economists don’t like queues. Queues remind us of our limited resources.
Queuing theory is the mathematical study of of queues...basically, people or things waiting in a line. You might be in a queue at the DMV or the drive-thru. Your downloads are in a queue. Papers waiting to be graded are in a queue. Queues are everywhere around you. Sadly.
Queuing theory is focused on in management and operations research. Management wants to know: how do I serve my customers faster, and with greater efficiency? Usually, the goal is to get the time it takes to process customers (or files, or what-have-you) down...while still queuing at a cost-efficient level. Reducing the people who need serving is another possibility, like in the case of customers who have a problem, and who are waiting in a customer service phone queue.
Getting more employees to get more people through queues is another way. Improving their skills and speed is another. Of course, automation takes the need for people to help out of the system. But even then, sometimes queues are already automated, like when you’re downloading queued files.
That’s our cue...time to wait in a queue.
