QUEUING SYSTEM WITH IMPATIENT CUSTOMERS - APPLYING SIMULATION TECHNIQUES TO SOLVE A SMALL BUSINESS PROBLEM

The study deals with an analysis and optimization of a queuing system in the service sector. The company under review is a traditional men’s hairdresser (barber) whose business model is based on limited offer of services (dry hair cut) with the emphasis on short waiting time and no orders in advance. The analyzed queuing system is characterized by impatient customers in the system. The aim of the study is to design an optimal operating system, which will balance the interests of operator (service owner), service staff, and service customers. Random distributions of system input parameters are modeled on the basis of known information about the number of arriving customers and the time of service. The resulting optimal parameter values were obtained by simulation procedure. The simulation was performed by MS Excel using VBA (Visual Basic for Applications).