Queuing Theory in Fast Food Restaurants

Abstract

Queuing at the cashier counter at any restaurant is a very common sight. This mainly occurs due to the difference in the time of the order placed and when the order is received. Longer queues could signify a number of things, but the main factors affecting the queues are the space of the place and the efficiency in management. Usually if a consumer were to see huge queues at the restaurant they would prefer going to other places rather than waiting in the queue, leading to a major loss for the management. This is where queuing theory comes into picture. Queuing theory helps to tackle the obstacles that the management faces, in terms of number of servers required, appropriate size of the restaurant, number of cooks required at the back end etc, which ultimately makes the queues move faster. This paper aims at analysing the queuing models like the Simulation model, Poisson distribution, Little’s theorem etc., used in restaurants over the years to make the queues less monotonous and less time consuming for the customers. Hence, leading to attracting more customers thereby increasing profits. Management over the years have come up with innovative ways to decrease the wait time or make waiting more interesting for the customers for examples kiosks help in fast ordering, installing televisions at restaurants to pass time, and many more discussed in the paper ahead. Keywords: queuing theory, service, queuing models, customers, fast food, time.