Analyzing the University Canteen Performance: A Case Study

Abstract

The university canteen is a queuing system with time dependent arrival patterns and limited resources. It has created the problem of students waiting in the queue during the lunch hour. This study purposively selected a Sri Lankan state university canteen composed of two counters and corresponding queues. The data were collected during the lunch hour of five consecutive week days. The sample included 200 students. The queuing system was modeled using the student version of Rockwell ARENA 14.5. The inter arrival times were calculated and inserted to the input analyzer to find the corresponding arrival patterns of students to the university canteen queues. It showed non uniform arrival rates explained by different patterns. The modeled system was run for one hour to find average values for waiting time of the students separately in two queues, number waiting in queues and number of arrivals and service receipts. The simulation showed that 64 students received the service among 64 successive arrivals. The results explained the average waiting times in queue 1 and queue 2 to be 2.35 and 3.03 in minutes respectively. The number waiting at counter 1 and 2 were 1.26 and 1.62 customers. The study further revealed the possibility of reducing waiting times at counter 1 and counter 2 to 0.68 and 0.89 minutes respectively by doubling the resources at both counters. The findings suggested improving the customer service of the system by opening an additional counter during the lunch hour and redesigning the layout considering the financial feasibility.