Aplication of M/M/N model in queuing problems in
supermarkets in the covid-19 context.
Napoleón Alcides Pérez Arteaga
IEEE El Salvador
Technology and Management Society Universidad Don Bosco
San Salvador,El Salvador
napoleon2008@ieee.org
Abstract— The main challenge that the world has to
overcome in the services, is the queues that depend in length
and proper characteristics. In the study case of “Tienda la
Central” the m/m/n model allows the owner to determine the
characteristics of the service in order to plain the service
strategies to overcome the covid-19 pandemic that requires
social distancing and limited the capacity of attendance in a
certain period of time, that’s why analyze the queues in every
single service channel can allow the company to increase the
financial rates and reduces as maximum as possible the
operation risks.
Keywords— Queue, Arrival features, Population size.
I. INTRODUCTION
Queuing theory is the study of queue or waiting lines.
Some of the analyses that can be derived using queuing
theory include the expected waiting time in the queue, the
average time in the system, the expected queue length, the
expected number of customers served at one time. The study
of waiting lines, called queuing theory [3].
The M/M/N model is one of the most important tools that
the management professionals have to develop, in order to
solve the problems of queuing that they have in their
services, considering that during the covid-19 pandemic,
many lockdowns have occurred, so the owners of small
supermarkets, and any type of business that builds queue
have the challenge to measure their system in order to reduce
the time that the costumer spend in the service, that have to
maintain the service channels in order to stabilize their
production cost.
II. THE M/M/N SYSTEM
A. THEORY
First, The m/m/n model is a model to manage the queuing
problems that may happen in an industry in has to be reduced
in order to decrease the human interaction, through the
restrictions that the covid-19 pandemic have.
Three basic components of a queuing process are arrivals,
the actual waiting line and service facilities [1].
Parts of queuing system are as follows:
1.The arrival
2. The queue
3.The service
These three items have to be take it into account in order
to maximize the process of develop queuing models.
©2020 IEEE
The arrival considers the number of people that enter in
your system in a certain period of time, but during the covid-
19 context exist a lot of restrictions, in order to respect the
social distancing, so the management professionals have to
create a method to increase the arrivals and reduce the time
expend in physical location.
The waiting area, is one of the most important things in
the m/m/n model because is the time expend in a queue
waiting for the service, the management professionals needs
to work in the efficiency of their service process, in order to
reduce the time that a client is on the system without receive
a proper attention.
The customer gets the facility and the quality in the
service and it’s measure in order of considering the
efficiency, that can be understood as the capacity to develop
an action, according to the client expectations, and is
considered by many authors as the comparative advantage.
Arrival Features: It is important to consider the size of
the population that enter in the system in a certain period of
time, and the specific pattern of arrivals at the queuing
system, the behavior of the arrivals, that are determined for
the type of service, in order to determine the capacity of
attendance using high quality standard such as ISO
9001:2015.
Population Size: are considered to be either infinite or
finite, for practical purpose, in our system is the maximum
people that is allowed to enter in a supermarket area, that
follow a probabilistic size.
Arrival Pattern Arrivals are considered random when
they are independent of one another and their occurrence
cannot be predicted exactly. Customers either arrive at a
service facility according to some known schedule customers
or else they arrive randomly [2].
B. EQUATIONS
The The number of arrivals per unit of time can be
estimated by a probability distribution known as the Poisson
distribution. Poisson distribution can be established by using
the formula:
n
λt
P ( n , t )= (1)
n!
Where:
P (n;t) = probability of n arrivals
 λ= average arrival rate type of transaction, considering the type of products that the
supermarket offer.
n= number of arrivals per unit of time
Queue: The waiting line itself is the main purpose of a
queuing system, and in our study case the length will be The following formulas may be used in the waiting line
considered finite, using the pattern of entrance to the system, analysis [4]:
the supermarket in a certain period of time.
Considering:
The single-channel, single-phase model considered here
is one of the most widely used and simplest queuing models. S=number of channels open
It involves following conditions [1]. λ=average arrival date.
µ=average service rate at each channel.
1) Arrivals are served on a FIFO basis.
2) Every arrival waits to be served regardless of the 1. Utilization rate:
queue length of the line; i.e., there is no balking or reneging.
λ
3) Arrivals are independent and the average number of p=
arrivals (the arrival rate) does not change over time. Sµ (2)

4) Arrivals are described by a Poisson probability

distribution and come from an infinite or very large 2. The average time a customer spends in the queue
population. waiting for service
5) Service time also varies from one passenger to the next λ
and is independent of one another, but their average rate is Wq=
known. µ( µ−λ) (3)

6) Both the number of items in queue at any time and the

waiting line experienced by a particular item are random 3. The average waiting time
variables.
Wt=Wq ×100 (4)
7) Service times occur according to the negative
exponential probability distribution.
4. Waiting cost

The average service rate is greater than the average

arrival rate. Wc=Wt ×100 (5)

III. MODEL APLICATION 5. Operating cost.

The model will be applied in a small market called
“Tienda La Central”, located in Santa Ana, El Salvador but
the same pattern can be applied to improve the service time OpCt =S∗50 (6)
in any kind of small store, considering that exist new
restrictions such as 2 meters of social distancing and a
maximum capacity of clients in the system. *$ 50 is the operating charge of one counter
channel (A cashier)
A. Operation System.
“Tienda La Central” is a small supermarket that sell 6. Total Cost
grocery and health care products to the costumers in a
building with 50 square meters, during the covid-19
Tc= Wt Ct + Op Ct (7)
pandemic, the operations have been paused because the
lockdowns. In October the owner decided to reopen, but with
limited capacity.
In the case of “Tienda La Central”, 100 costumers are
The supermarket has a limited operation capacity of arriving on an average per hour for a particular service and
attendance with only three cashiers; the owner requires a operator service rate is 110 customers per hour.
program to determine the amount of cashiers in operation
depending of the number of costumer that are in the queue. In the study case the main goal is to estimate the expected
total cost of the system and advice how many cashiers the
The arrival process is Poisson with rate λ. Arrivals will company will open to minimize the total expected cost, in
join a single queue and enter the first available service total of 3.
channel [3]. The multiple channel assume that the arrival
process is rate λ =30 clients per hour assuming the average of The Analysis is summarized in:
the last month in “Tienda La Central”, and the average
service rate is µ=6 min per client.
One important assumption of the model is Service is first
come, first served, and all the costumers perform the same
 TABLE I. RESULTS

S No. Wq/h Wt Wt.Ct O TC IV. CONCLUSION

. of our p. =Wt.Ct
N Cou Ct +
o nter Op.Ct The owner can manage their workforce and the queues in
Ope the system using this model, that works using and average
n (S) that is calculated, by the register of entrance to the store and
1 1 1/11 100/ 1000/ 50 $140.9 analyze how each channel has the capacity to attend the
11 11 0 costumers that enter in the system
2 2 1/26 100/ 1000/ 10 $
4 264 264 0 103.78 During the covid-19 context the human interaction has to
3 3 1/75 100/ 1000/ 15 $151.3 be reduced, so the companies that officer services that
9 759 759 0 175 generates queues have to work in strategies to determine the
real capacity of attendance, and that can be solved using the
heuristic model m/m/n, because the present challenge is to
increase the financial rates with the same resources, and that
can be solved with a proper determination of the service
Applying the model to the system the result is:
capacity.
The Estimated Characteristic of the System:
The main operating features for the system in the study
case that can be solved using the m/m/n model is :
1) Average number of customers arriving at the system, λ =
100 customer/ hour 1) Utilization rate,
2) The mean number of customers served per hour, μ = 110 2) Percent idle time,
customer/ hour
3) The utilization factor for the system, ρ = λ/μ = 0.9 3) Average time spent waiting in the system and in the
4) The traffic intensity for the system, ψ = λ/Sμ = 0.4545 < 1 queue,
5) The average number of customers in line waiting for 4) Average number of customers in the system and in the
service (check in) Lq = 9.09 queue
6) The average number of customers in the system Ls = 10
7) The average time a customer spends in the queue waiting 5) Probabilities of various numbers of customers in the
for service Wq = 0.0037 system
8) The average time a customer spends in the waiting line or
being serviced (namely, in the System): Ws = 0.10 hours

In order to modify the system parameters in a certain period REFERENCES

of time, the owner can use a simple Excel macro, to adjust
the system [1] Kapoor, V. K. (1999). Operations Research. Fourth Edition, July
[2] Taha, H. (1987). Operations research. Fourth Edition, Collier Mac
This macro will be online at: Willam, pp 621-630.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1diKSRdO8IJ9EdM9YyLhe3 [3] D.M. Brann and B.C. Kulick, “Simulation of restaurant operations
using the Restaurant Modeling Studio,”Proceedings of the 2002
9m7DCw4P0rW/view?usp=sharing Winter SimulationConference, IEEE Press, Dec. 2002, pp. 1448-1453.
[4] Morse, P. (1971). Methods of operations research. London : Chapan
and Hall
[5] Hui, L, & Tao, Y. (2000). Theory and methodologyqueues with a
The Factor have to be take in to account in an average variable number of servers. European journal of operational research,
hour of service, using exponential factors considering the 124, 615-628.
number of servers, the interarrival times, service times and
the length of simulation.
.

Fig. 1. Example of a m/m/n model macro