The Application Of Queuing Theory To Customer Service At Selected Branches Of The Standard Chartered Bank Ghana Limited

ABSTRACT This thesis investigates the Application of Queuing theory to customer services at selected branches of the Standard Chartered Bank in Accra. The problem investigated was to determine among other things whether the customer service points of the bank functions well without bottlenecks or undue delays. That is this thesis intends to investigate, (a) If the bank current system of operation at the customer service points is satisfactory. (b) If not what changes are required to improve the mode of operation at the service points of the bank. The methodology employed was to collect data from the customers arriving at the service points of the bank. Customers arriving at the service points of the bank are given identification or trial numbers such as 1, 2, 3 etc in the order of their arrival. Their clock time of arrival, beginning of service and at the end of service are observed for each customer at a duration of at least three(3) hours for three days for the selected branches under study. The data was analyzed by preparing an elaborate worksheet using Microsoft Excel. This would depict the state changes for any arriving customer during the period of observation. A summarized relative frequency distribution was also depicted for the inter arrival and service times. This would enable the researcher to know the proportion of customers whose inter arrival and service times fall within a certain category for each day of observation. This would help determine in what ways the queues differ from day to day and, possibly from one branch to another. The results obtained indicate that a customer spends a minimum of thirty (30) minutes at the service points of the bank. Hence the conclusions that follow indicates that very few cash booths are opened to serve customers at the various hours of the day at the service points of the selected branches of the bank investigated. Consequently, excessive long queues are observed at the service points of the selected branches of the bank. This means that the current demand for service at the selected branches of the bank exceeds the current capacity to provide that service. Hence, cashiers at the cash booths of the selected branches of the Standard Bank, Ghana Limited spend most of their times serving customers at the service points of the bank. To improve the mode of operation, an additional teller window should be opened to serve customers at the service points of the bank at various hours of the day. This would reduce the burden on the cashiers and enhance efficient customer service delivery.