Billing counter optimization at hypermarkets during offer days and non-offer days

Waiting in queues are a common phenomenon that can be seen or experienced in our daily life. Queues are common in places like filling stations, supermarket stores, hospitals, tollgate, manufacturing firms etc., Waiting in line for getting a service is boredom. No customer will be willing to wait in long queues and waiting in hypermarket counters are not exception. This paper examines an efficient queue management at hypermarket counters considering the variations in customer arrivals at different time during business hours. One of the expected gains from this study is application of the queuing system to optimize the billing section within a short duration in terms of server utilization and minimum queue length. An interesting aspect of the queuing system is to measure its system’s performance evaluating the server utilization, number of counters used, and overall cost involved for operating the billing section. Finally, the study attempts to propose a scientific approach to act quickly to determine an optimum number of billing counters to put in operation at hypermarkets billing section for varying customer arrival rate during offer days and non-offer days.