Sustainable Operations and Computers 2 (2021) 107–114

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Integration of Taguchi-simulation method for improving banking services

Mehrnaz Bastani, Ali Jahan∗
Department of Industrial Engineering, Semnan Branch, Islamic Azad University, Semnan, Iran

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Keywords: Banks are branded as service organizations that have a close relationship with their customers by providing
Simulation financial services. On the other hand, customers are considered as one of the most important resources of banks.
Taguchi method Service long queues will increase their waiting time and reduce satisfaction. After determining the distribution
Banking services
function of variables in Enterprise dynamic (ED) software, model design was performed and the software was
Customer satisfaction
run for six and a half hours (bank working hours). Taguchi method, signal-to-noise ratio, were used for better
analyzing the factors, and improvement. A case study was conducted at Mellat Bank in Semnan according to
four controllable factors, including customer arrival time, number of servers, system capacity and service length,
plus two uncontrollable factors such as branch location, type of service. Finally, 72 tests were performed and the
factors of customer arrival time and service length were identified as the most important factors in improving
the quality of system services.

Introduction
The circular economy is directly related to the availability of financ-
ing for circular projects and efficient banking services [1,2]. Nowadays,
banks in advanced countries act as resolvers of difficulties, professional
counselors, and an expert to increase financial sources of firms and
gather and interchange necessary information for their customers [3].
They are also considered as a major economic incentive engine in each
country. By developing ever-increasing technologies and industrializing
all countries, bank’s managers try to increase novel and new banking
services in comparison with other competitors to attract customers’ de-
posits. Customer orientation is one of the concepts that affect all orga-
nizations; paying no attention to this concept can be linked to survival.
Until now, numerous studies have been accomplished on customer’s sat-
isfaction in services.
Krishnamurti and Kapadia’s [4] used the Taguchi method to opti-
mize a consumable food item for a catering business. This method was
used to optimize the apple bread production process for a catering cen-
ter and showed that the food production process and food quality could
be improved without any additional cost. Faghihi et al. [5] tried to ex-
amine the relationship between Mellat Bank privatization and the im-
provement of its service quality using the SERVQUAL instrument and
its questionnaire. Analysis of data showed that the privatization of Mel-
lat Bank has not a positive effect on the improvement of service qual-
ity. Shahin and Jonathan [6] integrated the Taguchi design of exper-
iments and the SERVQUAL approach in Iran Travel Agency. For this
purpose, five basic dimensions of service quality, including reliability,
∗
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: a.jahan@semnaniau.ac.ir (A. Jahan).
responsiveness, assurance, empathy, tangibles, and price, have been as-
sumed as control factors. The response factor has been defined as two
alternatives to the sum of customer expectations and the sum of ser-
vice quality gaps. The noise factor was considered in this study. The
advantage of the method compared to classic approaches of design of
experiments is the simultaneous improvement of mean value and stan-
dard variation. Signal to noise ratio (S/N) was computed, and the de-
sired mix of the levels of service quality dimensions was determined,
respectively. Sobhani-Fard and Akhavan [7] tried to present indices to
improve customers’ services by determining guidance priority to mea-
sure banking services quality and assign indices priority for all banks to
enable them to attain their goals, i.e., customers’ satisfaction and then
making a profit. Gunson et al. [8], described an experiment to investi-
gate users’ perceptions of the usability and security of single-factor and
two-factor authentication in automated telephone banking. In the ex-
periment, they compared a customer-based approach with a knowledge-
based, single-agent authentication method commonly used in the finan-
cial services industry with a two-factor approach. The results showed
significant differences between the two methods. Mirfakhroddini and
Peirow [9] employed the Kano model to improve banking services to
recognize attractive needs in order to study and give a suitable solu-
tions to improving recognized/explored needs. Also, they have prior-
itized technical specifications by experts’ opinion to promote branch’s
services quality. Moreover, Zanjirchi and Jalalian [10] used the Taguchi
method and the Kano model to improve banking services quality. In
their research, a simulation method wasn’t used to recognize the sys-
tem and only seven factors as the most important and influential factors
in three levels, i.e., weak, middle, and good was measured by asking
18 experts to answer the designed questionnaire on available dimen-
sions in banking services quality (BSQ). Finally, the Kano model was

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.susoc.2021.05.004
Received 17 October 2020; Received in revised form 7 May 2021; Accepted 28 May 2021
Available online 5 June 2021
2666-4127/© 2021 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of KeAi Communications Co., Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND
license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)
M. Bastani and A. Jahan
used to analyze these factors. Additionally, Pinto et al. [11] studied the
general simulation model for improving emergencies cares, and atten-
tion. They used a utilizable model for ambulance systems after inspect-
ing/examining ambulance models and their backgrounds. Mansouri and
et al. [12] identified the banking service supply chain and performed an
agent-based simulation using a service-dominant logic approach in Net-
logo for five banks. The model considered the flow of profit and other
important parameters related to the customers, the bank, the central
bank, and other banks and corporations during the mentioned period.
Rahiminezhad et al. [13] engaged in studying gasoline stations by using
the Taguchi and simulation method. Gabi et al. [14] used a Taguchi-
based orthogonal multifunctional task planning model and Pareto opti-
mization strategy to reduce local trapping and Keep a balance between
global and local search. Treber’s et al. [15] presented a simulation-based
approach was for modeling production and business processes as well as
information exchange in global production networks. Firouzabadi et al.
[16] drew out five specifications of each customer, such as last refer-
ral time, transaction number, deposit amount, loan amount, and loans’
delayed payments during a working-year from bank input base, and all
customers were clustered by the k-average algorithm. Then, a multi-
goals model was designed for allocating bank services to each cluster.
The model was further designed to increase customers’ satisfaction and
decrease costs as well as services’ allocation. Moreover, in a paper by
Yang and et al. [17] a novel approach was introduced to solve the lean
manufacturing design of semiconductor crystal manufacturing that is
an important industry. Also, simulation optimization was used to deter-
mine the optimal parameter values for a robust system. In order to de-
velop an integrated marketing communications program, Jalilian et al.
[18] evaluated marketing scenarios based on integrated communica-
tion tools, while examining how it affects the bank customers’ decision.
Therefore, from the integrated and innovative approach of factor-based
modeling and Taguchi method, it has been implemented and imple-
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Sustainable Operations and Computers 2 (2021) 107–114
Fig. 1. Stages of the used method.
mented in the model-oriented modeling and simulation space. Chindu
et al. [19] studied the effect of customers’ perceptions of bank market-
ing communications on customer loyalty. The results showed that the
elements of banking marketing communications, including advertising,
sales promotion, public relations and personal selling, are significant
predictors of customer loyalty. Hassan and Wood [20] by studying the
potential impact of the country’s culture on consumers ’perceptions of
new and innovative services, showed that the country’s culture can to
some extent influence consumers’ perceptions and intentions of mobile
banking. Talebi et al. [21] engaged in customers’ satisfaction through
decreasing customers waiting time by simulation approach and design-
ing of the experiment. In this research, the RSM method was used to
improve banking services and influential factors, and consequently, it
could decrease customer’s waiting time almost by 32%. However, only
the number of servers was mentioned as an influential factor. Taghavi
et al. [22] used simulation and scenario-making to improve banking
services; they tried to improve the system by making different scenarios
such as augmentation of a server.
The Taguchi method, in comparison with the making-scenario
method, needs less time and cost, and this method help to improve sys-
tem’s services quality by recognizing influential controllable and uncon-
trollable factors and examining them on different levels. Simulation is
a suitable method to study the system and to find weaknesses. By using
simulation, customers’ number and their waiting time in an array and
servicing time of personnel in office-time are recognizable. Reviewing
the literature showed that the simulation and Taguchi method haven’t
been used for designing bank system to find the most important influ-
ential factors on improving services’ quality as well as insensitivity to
noise or uncontrollable factors. The remainder of this paper has been
divided into three parts: the proposed method is detailed in Section 2.
The case study and result presented in Section 3 and the paper is closed
in Section 4 with conclusion.
M. Bastani and A. Jahan
Fig. 2. Conceptual model of the system.
Materials and methods
This study aimed at improving banking services to attract more
customers and attain their satisfaction. To achieve this goal, first, we
checked the banking system and gathered information, and recognized
the system. Next, system’s difficulties, and problems were identified.
The Taguchi method [17,23,24] was employed to improve services and
designing the experiments. The Taguchi method is a simple method and
is widely used in research and product quality improvement. Research
stages are shown in Fig. 1. After review of the literature and under-
standing gap of research, for better understanding the system the re-
lated data, information, and reports was analyzed from the branch of
the bank. Then a model same as real condition was designed and run.
After that model was analyzed for verification and validation. Effective
factors were determined considering several levels for each of them.
The number of experiments is determined according to the number of
effective parameters and the number of levels. Future for improving the
system, the noise factors were determined and Taguchi method was em-
ployed and using Minitab software the best levels of factors as well as
regression model were revealed. At the end optimum condition was an-
alyzed through simulation model.
Fig. 2 shows the relation of the system conceptual model. In this
research, we considered a branch of Mellat Bank comprising seven ticket
counters, so that five ticket-counters perform cashier work such as:
- Opening interest-free account, checking account, saving account,
and other similar accounts.
- Accepting long-term and short-term investment deposits or similar
cases.
Clear counter proceeds to many affairs, such as credential issuance
and different kinds of checks, such as traveling check and so on. It also
performs related transactions and confirm and accept each type of bank-
ing warranty, along with related regulations and principles/criteria.
Electronic services ticket-counter, furthermore, fulfills mobile banking,
people messenger, banking internet, and so on.
Results
In this study, we randomly computed the first 30 samples of cus-
tomers’ arrival time and used Eq. (1) to calculate the sample extent.
Table 1 shows data related to interval between customers’ arrival in
minute.
( )2
𝑡 ∝ ,𝑛−1 × 𝛿
𝑁≥ 2
(1)
𝜀 iments to be performed within the tolerable and levels. In a Taguchi
According to Table 1, δ = 1.43 and giving that “n” equals to 30, ε =
0.075, and “𝛼” equals to 0.05, t0∕025,29 equals to 2.045.
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Sustainable Operations and Computers 2 (2021) 107–114
Table 1
Data on the time interval between two
customer’s arrivals (minute).
4 1 0 0 1 1
2 3 2 0 5 0
3 3 5 3 1 1
2 2 1 3 2 2
3 0 2 3 3 4
( )2
2.045 × 1.43
N≥
0.075
N ≥ 1520.32 ≃ 1520
Data were collected during 20 working-days that seven days were
gathered by researcher and 13 days were gathered by registered inputs
in banking system at 7:30 till 14 o’clock from Saturday to Thursday. Two
thousand four hundred twenty four (2424) samples were gathered for
first type customers (Banking services) and four hundred sixty four (464)
samples for second type customers (Clear services) and four hundred
sixty two (462) samples for third type customers (Electronic services) an
totally three thousand four hundred (3400) customers request servicing.
We proceeded to draw a model in software after determining
variables distribution function in Enterprise dynamic (ED) software
(Table 2). This function registers customers’ arrival time as well as du-
ration of servicing variables in the employed software. This model was
carried out for Six hours and a half. Fig. 3 shows the obtained results.
According to the results, the number of customers’ arrival (first type,
second type and third type) are shown in Table 3 over a working-day.
Also, the percentage of customers’ attendance are shown in Table 4.
Further, the percentage of idle time and busy are shown in Table 5.
Further, according to the obtained results during one working-day, a
total of 171 customers referred to the bank, among whom there were120
people were the first-type customers, 26 persons were in the second-type
customer, and 25 persons were in the third-type customers. In six and a
half hours of working-time, the percentage of vacant in the queue was
33.26%, namely the queue was empty for about 2 h and 9 min. The
percentage of the busy queues was about 52.88%, nearly a customer
was in the queue about 3 h and 33 min, and a full queue percentage
was 13.88%, meaning that the queue was full of the customer about
9 min. According to the obtained results in software, the busy percent
of servers, respectively was as follows: 86.7%, 88.1%, 94.8%, 88.2%,
91.1%, 83.7%, and 89.9%.
The Taguchi method is a powerful experimental methodology and
problem solving technique used to find the minimum number of exper-
designed experiment, help to identify optimal control factor settings
that make the process or product robust, or resistant to variation from
the noise factors. Higher values of the signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) iden-
M. Bastani and A. Jahan Sustainable Operations and Computers 2 (2021) 107–114

Table 2
Distribution function of data.

Distribution function Data type

Normal (3/84,4/17) Customer login for banking services (7:30-10)

Weibull (2/30,1/68) Customer login for banking services (10-12)
Largest (3/13,2/133) Customer login for banking services (12-14)
Lognormal (16/28,8/87) Customer login for Clear services
Negexp (15,26) Customer login for Electronic services
Negexp (11/7,31) Receiving service on the first banking service server
Negexp (12/65,25) Receiving service on the second banking service server
Negexp (15/6,16) Receiving service on the third banking service server
Negexp (14/3, 31) Receiving service on the fourth banking service server
Negexp (17/2, 15) Receiving service on the fifth banking service server
Negexp (15/2,29) Receiving Clear services
Negexp (16/18) Receiving Electronic services

Fig. 3. Simulation model in ED software after execution.

Table 3 Table 5
The number of customers’ arrival. Percentage of servants busy.

Number of first type customers (Banking services) 120 Percentage of servant busy Percentage of unemployed servant
Number of second type customers (Clear services) 26
Server 1 86.7% 13.3%
Number of third type customers (Electronic services) 25
Server 2 88.1% 11.9%
Server 3 94.8% 5.2%
Table 4 Server 4 88.2% 11.8%
Server 5 91.1% 8.9%
Percentage of customers in the queue.
Server 6 83.7% 16.3%
Percentage of empty queues 33.26% Server 7 89.9% 10.1%
Percentage of queue filing 52.88%
Complete percentage of queue filing 13.86%

Also, uncontrollable factors are shown in Table 8.

Time of customers’ arrival is computed according to Table 9.
tify control factor settings that minimize the effects of the noise fac-
Also, the number of servers is computed and shown in Table 10.
tors. Therefore, Taguchi method can be used for optimizing the sys-
In this study four controllable factors set at two levels that is orthog-
tems contains both controllable and uncontrollable variables. There are
onal arrangement equal to L8, and two uncontrollable factors at 3 levels
two methods to analyze the results: (1) standard method, (2) signal-
that orthogonal arrangement is equal to L9, which is 72 experiments as
to-noise ratio (S/N). The Signal-to-noise method is recommended for
can be seen in Table 11. SNL value in the third experiment is higher than
experiments along with repetition.
other experiments.
( 𝑚
)
1 ∑ 1 As shown in Fig. 4, after registering experimental results in MINITAB
SNi = −10 Log (2) software, we listed signal-to-noise ratios and means in response tables.
𝑚 𝑗=1 𝑦2
𝑖𝑗
Also, analysis of variance is shown in Fig, 5 for signal-to-noise ratios
In the Eq. (2), m is observations’ number and yij is the number of and means. The best level for each factor is shown in Table 12.
arrived customers to the bank for ith observations. Controllable factors Fig. 6 shows the effect of controllable factors in both level 1 and 2
are shown in Table 7. for signal-to-noise ratio and means. For example, considering factor A,

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Table 7
Controllable factors of research.

Number Type Factor Level 1 Level 2

1 Main factor Customer arriving time(A) See Table 9 See Table 9

2 The number of service-providers(B) See Table 10 See Table 10
3 Capacity of queue (C) 10 20
4 Servicing duration(D) 6:30 8:30

Table 8
Uncontrollable factors of research.

Number Type Factor Level 1 Level 2 Level 3

1 Noise factor Branch location(E) Suburbs In the city City center

2 Types of Servers(F) Banking services Clear services Electronic

Fig. 4. Response table for signal-to-noise ratios and means in MINITAB software.

Fig. 5. Analysis of variance results for signal-to-noise ratios and means in MINITAB software.

Fig. 6. Main effect plot of factors for mean and signal-to-noise ratio.

Table 9
Time of customer’s arrival.
Customer types
Banking customer service
Clear customer service
Electronic customer service
Table 10
The number of servers.
Types of Servers Number of Servers Level 1
the means of customers entered bank at level one is 75 and it decreased
at level 2.
Fig. 7, on the other hand, shows interaction effect of factors. As it
Lowest arrival time Most arrival time
clear in the figure, interaction effect is significant for factors C and D.
1 17 MINITAB software proceeds to analyze regression using all control-
5 23
7 31
lable factors, including arrival time, number of severs, system capacity
and servicing duration for signal-to-noise ratio.
𝑧̂ 𝛽0 + 𝛽1 𝑥1 + 𝛽2 𝑥2 + 𝛽3 𝑥3 = 108.7 − 61.28𝐴 + 10.44𝐵 − 2𝐶 + 9.28𝐷
Number of Servers Level 2

Banking services 5 7
When an experiment or test is performed, it is necessary to confirm
Clear services 1 3
Electronic service 1 3 the validity. Table 13 shows response value at two levels and bold values
show the optimum level for each undermentioned factor.

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M. Bastani and A. Jahan Sustainable Operations and Computers 2 (2021) 107–114

Fig. 7. Interaction plot of factors.

Table 11
Result of Taguchi experimental design.

Controllable Factors Uncontrollable Factors

1 1 1 2 2 2 3 3 3 (E)
1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 (F)
Run (A) (B) (C) (D) R1 R2 R3 R4 R5 R6 R7 R8 R9 Mean SNL

1 1 1 1 1 112 10 8 122 21 18 160 38 34 58/11 57/068

2 1 1 2 2 50 12 14 160 28 30 222 49 58 69/22 58/845
3 1 2 1 2 65 18 15 195 66 45 266 102 72 93/77 60/862
4 1 2 2 1 50 14 12 162 52 24 230 73 56 74/77 59/261
5 2 1 1 2 7 6 5 20 13 10 30 22 16 14.33 43/378
6 2 1 2 2 5 5 4 15 10 8 22 16 12 10/77 40/810
7 2 2 1 1 5 6 4 15 11 7 23 16 13 11/11 41/083
8 2 2 2 2 7 5 6 17 14 11 30 23 18 14/55 43/467

Table 12 𝑧̂ = 22∕73 + ((27.46 − 22∕73) + (23∕51 − 22∕73) + (22∕64 − 22∕73)

The best level of each factor.
+ (23∕94 − 22∕73)) = 29∕36
Factor Level Real value

1 Customer arriving time 1 According to table 10 𝑧 is equal 29.36. Five more runs (based on the optimum setting of
2 The number of service-providers 2 According to table 11 parameters) have been designed to verify the predicted model. Table 14
3 Row/array capacity 1 10
shows experiment verification and its related response. Observed error
4 Servicing duration 2 8:30
(1.26%) is less than 5% that signal to noise rate that has been executed,
meaningfully is not different from anticipated signal to noise rate that
Table 13 is optimum.
Table of response value in two levels. The new experiments indicate important progresses in terms of S/N
with a difference of 6.63 among the predicted S/N ratio and the average
Factors Level 1 Level 2
of S/N ratio(Z). Consequently, it can be determined that the optimum
Customer arrival time 27.46 18.01 setting proposed in Table 12 expresses the most significant levels of the
Number of servers 21.96 23.51
design parameters that yield a robust and insensitive design for customer
System Capacity 22.64 22.83
Duration of servicing 21.53 23.94 arrival.
According to the results obtained in this study, before employing
Taguchi method, the number of customers entering the bank was 170
people a day, and the percentage of busy service providers was in a
Formula 𝑧 shows the mean of signal-to-noise, and Xf shows the opti- working day was equal to 88.92, and also the percentage of queue fulling
mum level for each factor. was 66.74. This means that on average, in 66.74% hours of system oper-
∑8 ation, customers have been waiting for their turn to receive the service.
𝑆 𝑁𝑖
𝑧 = 𝑖=1 = 22∕73 However, after improving the system and reevaluating the model, the
8 number of customers entering the bank was measured at 430 people
per day. The percentage of busy service providers the working day was
4 (
∑ ) equal to 80.54, and the percentage of queue fulling was equal to 57.31.
𝑧̂ = 𝑧 + 𝑋𝑓 − 𝑧 After the improvement by the Taguchi method, the number of customers
1 entering the bank is increased, but the waiting time of customers in the
queue and the time of busy employees decreased. It can also be con-

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Table 14
Confirmation of experiment.

Customer arrival time Number of servers System Capacity Duration of servicing Answer
Performance (customer
Level Real Value Level Real Value Level Real Value Level Real Value number)

1 1 According to Table 9 2 According to Table 10 1 10 2 8:30 433

2 1 According to Table 9 2 According to Table 10 1 10 2 8:30 431
3 1 According to Table 9 2 According to Table 10 1 10 2 8:30 428
4 1 According to Table 9 2 According to Table 10 1 10 2 8:30 430
5 1 According to Table 19 2 According to Table 10 1 10 2 8:30 431
Mean response 430/6
Actual S/N ratio 29/36
Predicted S/N (𝑧̂ ) 22/73
% (S/N) error 1/26%

Table 15 Declaration of Competing Interest

Results before and after service improvement.

Before After The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence
Average percent of busy service providers 88.92 80.54
the work reported in this paper.
Percentage of queue fulling 66.74 57.31
Number of system customers 170 430.6

Reference

cluded that with increasing the number of busy service providers (fac-
tor 2) and reducing the percentage of queue fulling and the percentage
of busy employees, the speed and quality of service delivery increases.
Table 15 shows the results of before and after improving services ob-
tained using ED software.
It was shown that integration of Taguchi method and system simu-
lation can improving banking services as well as customer waiting time.
When time between customer’s arrival is low, and the branch is in center
of city, services are time consuming. It was shown that by increasing the
number of servers and service time, especially for first type of customers,
percent of busy service providers will decrease and this leads to less
boredom and finally better service quality. This method can be used in
optimizing process parameters in industry as well as non-manufacturing
processes [25–27] and services such as hospitals, and gas stations.
Conclusion
Process management is the employment of financial and human re-
sources effecting efficiently, organizing, sources and facilities prepara-
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the organization’s goals. One of the managers’ responsibilities is to ana-
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Taguchi method is entirely different from current and popular methods.
The Taguchi method focuses on the quality of design in product and pro-
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during or after production, Taguchi, indeed, believes that the best way
to improve quality is to improve the design. According to the outcomes,
banks’ managers should manage number of service providers, capac-
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and their satisfaction, and to gain an optimum rate from servicing and
productivity. The results of this study indicate that banks can achieve
reduced staffing needs, better use of staff during less busy periods, re-
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and management system. Each controllable factor was evaluated at two
levels and uncontrollable at three levels but measuring simulation data
such as customer arrival time and service duration was very time con-
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more levels. Further research might investigate the service quality of
the branches of bank by providing questionnaires to the customers with
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