Journal of Manufacturing Engineering, September 2021, Vol. 16, Issue.

3, pp 082-086

IMPROVING SERVICE QUALITY OF DHABA WITH THE

HELP OF QUEUING THEORY
*Kajal Garg and Umesh Sharma
1
Department of Basic and Applied Science, Sanskriti University, Mathura, Uttar Pradesh-281401, India

ABSTRACT
Queuing theory is the mathematics of waiting lines. It is beneficial in predicting and
evaluating system performance. Queuing theory has been used for operations research, manufacturing
and systems analysis. The common problem in almost every famous Dhaba is that they lose their
customers due to a long wait in the line. Some dhaba provide an extra chair for the customer to wait.
But after waiting too long, they leave. However, waiting chairs alone would not solve a problem when
customers withdraw and go to the next dhaba. This causes a lot of loss to our dhaba. This shows a
need of a numerical model for the restaurant management to understand the situation better. This
paper aims to show that queuing theory satisfies the model when tested with a real-case scenario. The
authors obtained the data from a “Gulshan Dhaba” in Hodal, Haryana. To derive the arrival rate,
service rate, utilization rate, waiting time in queue, and potential customers' probability to balk. The
collected data is analysed by using Little’s Theorem and M/M/1 queuing model. The arrival rate at
“Gulshan Dhaba”, Hodal during its busiest period of the day is two customers per minute (cpm),
while the service rate is 2.02 cpm during our study period. The average number of customers in the
restaurant is 100, and the utilization period is 0.99.
.

Keywords: Queuing theory; Little’s Theorem; Kendall’s notation; Waiting Lines and Dhaba

1. Introduction
offer. A low level of service may be inexpensive, at
With the growth of population and living least in the short run, but may incur high costs of
standards, people are keen to take food in customer dissatisfaction, such as lost future business
dhaba/restaurant. Visitors, tourists, office goers take and actual processing costs of complaints [3]. The
regular food in a restaurant within their budget. Dhaba arrangement of at least 60 persons at a time is
services by providing food, breakfast, tiffin, lunch, considered in the scheme. If the service and quality of
dinner, and cold drinks and snacks are top-rated. food are correctly maintained, then we can take most
Nowadays, visitors, customers, tourists, floating people profit in business. Waiting lines are the most frequently
prefer to sit in the restaurant for a while and take encountered problems in everyday life [4]. A long
necessary appetizers and go away [1]. Thus, dhaba can waiting line may result in loss of customers to an
be planned to set up in outer of town/city of thick organization. Waiting time can be reduced by providing
population, on the high way side. The more option for additional service facilities, but it may increase the idle
food is kept to serve, the more the dhaba will be famous. time of the service mechanism.
There are several determining factors for a dhaba to be Queuing theory is the study of a queue or
considered a good or a bad one. waiting lines. Some of the analyses that can be derived
Taste, cleanliness, the restaurant layout and using queuing theory include the expected waiting time
settings are some of the most critical factors. These in the queue, the average time in the system, the
factors, when managed carefully, will be able to attract expected queue length, the expected number of
plenty of customers. However, another factor needs to customers served at one time, the probability of balking
be considered, especially when the restaurant has customers, as well as the probability of the system to be
already succeeded in attracting customers. This factor is in certain states, such as empty or full [5]. Hence,
the customers queuing time [2]. In a waiting line queuing theory is suitable to be applied in a dhaba
system, managers must decide what level of service to

*Corresponding Author - E- mail: [email protected]

www.smenec.org 82 © SME
 Journal of Manufacturing Engineering, September 2021, Vol. 16, Issue. 3, pp 082-086

setting since it has an associated queue or waiting line and the service is described by the service time per
where customers who cannot be served immediately customer. Customers may jockey from one queue to
have to queue for service. This paper uses queuing another in the hope of reducing waiting time. They may
theory to study the waiting lines in “Gulshan Dhaba” at also balk from joining a queue altogether because of
Hodal, Haryana, India, and the dhaba provides 50 tables long delay, or they may renege from a queue because
out of which some have four chairs, and some have six they have been waiting too long [6].
chairs. Twenty waiters are working at any one time. On
a daily basis, it serves over 700 customers during Queue: A group of items waiting to receive service,
weekdays and over 1200 customers during the weekend. including those receiving the service, is known as a
This paper seeks to illustrate the usefulness of applying queue.
queuing theory in a real case situation.
Arrival rate: Arrival is the number of arrivals per unit of
time.
2. Background Of Queuing Theory
Service rate: It is the rate at which the customer is
The first paper on queuing theory, “The Theory
served in the system.
of Probabilities and Telephone Conversations”, was
published in 1909 by A.K. Erlang, now considered the
Service time: The time taken by the server to complete
father of the field. His work with the Copenhagen
service is known as service time.
Telephone Company is what prompted his initial foray
into the field. He pondered the problem of determining
Server: It is a mechanism through which service is
how many telephone circuits were necessary to provide
offered. The queuing calculations change depends on
phone service that would prevent customers from
whether there is a single server or multiple servers for
waiting too long for an available circuit. In developing a
the queue [7].
solution to this problem, he realised that minimizing
waiting time was applicable to many fields and further
Queue Lengths: The queue in a system can be modelled
developed the theory. He identified that the number of
as having infinite or finite queue length. This includes
telephone conversations and telephone holding time fit
the customers waiting in the queue.
into Poisson distribution and exponentially distributed.
Queue Discipline: It is the order in which the members
of the queue are offered service. There are several
possibilities in terms of the sequence of customers to be
served such as FIFO (First in First Out), random order,
LIFO (Last in First Out), SIRO (Service in Random
Order) [8].

Waiting time in a queue: Time spent by a customer in

Fig. 1 Queuing System
the queue before being served.
The mechanism of a queuing process is very
simple. Customers arrive at the service counter and are Waiting time in the system: It is the total time spent by
attended by one or more of the servers. As soon as a a customer in the system.
customer is served, he departs from the system. It can be calculated as follows:
Waiting time in the system=Waiting time in queue +
3. Queuing Model Service time

It is a suitable model used to represent a In this section, we will discuss two common concepts in
service-oriented problem, where customers arrive queuing theorem.
randomly to receive some service, the service time
being also a random variable. The principal actors in a
queuing situation are the customer and the server. On 4. Little’s Theorem
arrival at a service facility, they can start service quickly
or wait in a queue if the server is busy. From the It describes the relationship between average
analysing queues, the arrival of customers is represented queueing length, average arrival rate and average
by the inter-arrival time between successive customers, waiting time in a queue. The significant part of this
theorem is that it is valid for any queueing system with a

www.smenec.org 83 © SME
 Journal of Manufacturing Engineering, September 2021, Vol. 16, Issue. 3, pp 082-086

steady state condition. Massachusetts Institute of the operation of Gulshan dhaba is M/M/1. This is a
Technology (MIT) professor John Little developed queuing model in which the arrival is Marcovian, and
Little’s law in 1954. departure distribution is also Marcovian, number of
The theorem states that the expected number of servers is one. In our observation, the dhaba has several
customers (N) for a system in steady state can be waitresses, but they only have one chef to serve all of
determined using the following equation: the customers in the actual waiting queue.
L = λt. For the analysis of the Gulshan dhaba M/M/1
The average number in the system = Arrival queuing model, the following variables will be
rate × Average system time. Here, λ is the average investigated: -
customer arrival rate, and T is the average service time
for a customer. Consider the example of a Dhaba, where Probability of zero customers in the dhaba: P0 = 1 – ρ
the customer’s arrival rate (λ) doubles, but the
customers still spend the same time in the dhaba(T). Pn: The probability of having n customers in the dhaba
These facts will double the number of customers in the Pn = (1 – ρ) ρn
dhaba (L). Little’s theorem is helpful in quantifying the
maximum achievable operational improvements and Ls: average number of customers dining in the dhaba
estimating the performance change when the system is λ/(µ-λ)
modified.
Lq: average number in the queue.
5. Kendall’s Notation λ2/(µ-λ)
Kendall’s Notation is a system of notation Ws: average time spent in Gulshan dhaba, including the
according to which the various characteristics of a waiting time.
queuing model are identified. Kendall (Kendall, 1951) 1/(µ-λ)
has introduced a set of notations that have become
standard in the literature of queuing models. Wq: average waiting time in the queue.
A general queuing system is denoted by λ/µ (µ-λ)=Lq/λ
(A/B/C): (D/E) Here, λ: Arrival rate
Where A is the probability distribution of µ: Service rate
interarrival time, B is the probability distribution of ρ: λ/µ utilization rate
service time, C is number of servers in the system, D is
the maximum number of customers allowed in the 7. Result And Duscussion
system, E is queue discipline.
It can be understood from the table 1 that the
6. Gulshan Dhaba Queuing Model number of customers on Saturdays and Sundays are
Queuing models are also called waiting line double the number of customers during weekdays. The
models. We are quite familiar with queues in our day-to- busiest period for the dhaba is on the weekend during
day life. Common examples of queuing models that we dinner time. Hence, we will focus our analysis in this
encounter are going to a doctor or going to a time window.
barbershop. Queuing models can be of several types.
Table 1 Number of customer visited
The first category is called a single server queuing
model, where there is only one server. We also have
multiple server queuing models where there are multiple Day/Week Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun
servers for the same job. The data were obtained from 1st week 450 495 420 476 495 920 1020
Gulshan dhaba through interviews with the dhaba 2nd week 415 470 460 419 510 905 990
manager as well as data collections through 3rd week 490 450 415 438 530 950 960
observations at the dhaba. The daily number of visitors 4th week 500 520 490 498 560 980 1000
was obtained from the dhaba itself. The dhaba has been
recording the data as part of its end of day routine. We Our teams conducted the research at dinner
also interviewed the dhaba manager to find out about time. On average, 360 people are coming to the dhaba in
the capacity of the dhaba, the number of waiters and 3 hours’ time window of dinner time.
waitresses, and the number of chefs in the dhaba. Based From this we can derive the arrival rate as:
on the interview with the restaurant manager, we λ=360/180
concluded that the queuing model that best illustrates λ=2 customer/hour

www.smenec.org 84 © SME
 Journal of Manufacturing Engineering, September 2021, Vol. 16, Issue. 3, pp 082-086

We also found out from observation and 8. Evaluation

discussion with the manager that each customer spends
50 minutes on average in the dhaba(W). The queue i. The utilization is directly proportional to the
length is around 30 people (Lq) on average, and the mean number of customers. It means that the
waiting time is around 13 minutes. It can be seen that mean number of customers will increase as the
the observed actual waiting time does not differ by utilization increases
much when compared to the theoretical waiting time as ii. 2)A bored customer is an impatient customer;
shown below. activity speeds the perception of time.
Wq = Lq/λ=30/2=15 iii. 3)The utilization rate at the dhaba is very high
at 0.99. On weekdays, the utilization rate is
Next, we will calculate the average number of almost half of it. This is because the number of
people in the dhaba using visitors on weekdays is only half of the number
L=50*2=100 customers of visitors on weekends
Having calculated the average number of iv. 4) People love to eat out, and they like to do so
customers in the dhaba, we can also derive the in a dhaba that is comfortable, safe and
utilization rate and the service rate enjoyable. Food isn't the only thing that
µ=λ(1+L)/L matters; a dhaba interior design also helps draw
=2(1+100)/100 customers in and entices them to come back
=2.0 again and again.
Hence, ρ= λ/µ=2/2.02=0.99 v. If the customer’s waiting time is lower or we
waited for less than 25 minutes, the number of
With the very high utilization rate of customers that can be served per minute will
0.99during dinner time, the probability of zero increase. When the service rate is higher, the
customers in the dhaba is minimal, as can be derived utilization will be lower, making the
P0 = 1 - ρ probability of the customers going away
= 1 -0.99 =0.01 decrease.

The generic formula that can be used to 9. Benefits

calculate the probability of having n customers in the
i. Queuing theory is applied to dhaba managers
dhaba is as follows:
looking for ways to improve their customers'
Pn = (1 – ρ) ρn
comfort and satisfaction while they wait for
= 0.01*(0.99) n
service.
ii. This research can help Gulshan Dhaba increase
We assume that potential customers will start
its QoS (Quality of Service) by anticipating
to balk when they see more than 25 people are already
many customers in the queue.
queuing for the dhaba. We also assume that the
iii. A goal of using queuing theory for restaurant
maximum queue length that a potential customer can
analysis is to improve customer wait times.
tolerate is 35 people. As the capacity of the dhaba when
This might be accomplished by adding more
fully occupied is 90 people, we can calculate the
servers at certain times of the day, on busier
probability of 25 people in the queue as the probability
days or after special events taking place in the
when there are 125 people in the system (100 in the
area. If it's not possible to speed up service,
dhaba and 25 or more queuing) as follows:
you also can work to improve the waiting
Probability of customers going away = P
experience.
(more than 25 people in the queue) = P (more than 125)
iv. By anticipating the huge number of customers
people in the dhaba)
coming and going in a day, the dhaba can set a
P100-125 = ∑n=100125(0.01) (0.99)n
target profit that should be achieved daily.
= 8.417%
v. The formulae used during the completion of
the research are applicable for future research
and could be used to develop more complex
theories.

www.smenec.org 85 © SME
 Journal of Manufacturing Engineering, September 2021, Vol. 16, Issue. 3, pp 082-086

10. Conclusion References

This research paper has discussed the 1. Umesh Sharma and Kajal Garg, (2021) “A Queuing Model
for Improving the Management of Oxygen Cylinder in
application of queueing theory of “Gulshan
COVID-19." International Journal of Innovative Science
Dhaba”.Restaurants create a nice, clean and comfortable and Research Technology, Vol.2, pp.729- 731
environment where patrons can enjoy their food. The
food is hygienically prepared and presented as 2. Nityangini Jhala1and Pravin Bhathawala, (2017)
"Analysis and Application of Queuing Theory in
compared to dhaba. But the dhabas bring nature to the Supermarkets", International Journal of Innovative
patrons. The atmosphere here is usually all-natural. Research in Science, Engineering and Technology, Vol.6,
Seating may not be comfortable, and is usually pp.17974-17979
rudimentary. The environment of the kitchen is
3. Umesh Sharma; Kajal Garg (2021)” Impact Of Queuing
questionable. Food is either simple home-style (genuine Theory in Whole Process in Business from Manufacture to
truck-stop dhabas) or robust. But the food is better than Consume Authors,” International Journal of Innovative
a restaurant. But the service quality is not good. So, we Research in Technology, pp. 297-300.
want to improve the service quality of dhabas in this 4. Nityangini Jhala1 and Pravin Bhathawala, (2016),
paper. From the result we have obtained, the rate at "Application of Queuing Theory in Banking Sector,
which customers arrive in the queuing system is two International Organization of Scientific Research-Journal
customers per minute, and the service rate is 2.02 of Mathematics, Vol.12, pp.73-75
customers per minute. The probability of buffer flow, if 5. Priyansh and Umesh Sharma,(2021) “Queuing Theory
there are 25 or more customers in the queue, is 30 out of Applied in Professional Life", International Journal of
100 potential customers. The probability of buffer Research and Analytical Reviews, pp.778-783.
overflow is the probability that customers will run away 6. Nityangini Jhala1 and Pravin Bhathawala, (2017)
because maybe they are impatient to wait in the queue. "Mathematical Analysis of Multi-phase single server and
It can be concluded that the arrival rate will be lesser, multi-phase multi server: Comparison study", International
and the service rate will be greater if it is on weekdays Journal of Mathematics Trends and Technology, Vol. 51,
pp.354-357
since the average number of customers is less as
compared to those on weekends. We hope that this 7. Nityangini Jhala1 and Pravin Bhathawala, (2016)," Smart
research can contribute to the betterment of Gulshan Queue management system for banking sector",
International Journal of Business Management and
Dhaba in terms of its way of dealing with customers. Economics Research, Vol. 3, pp.29-34

8. Nityangini Jhala1 and Pravin Bhathawala, (2017)

Application of Queuing Theory to Airport related
problems, Global Journal of Pure and Applied
mathematics, Global Journal of Pure and Applied
mathematics, Vol. 13, pp.3863-3868.

www.smenec.org 86 © SME