| Abstract: | We study how queue configuration affects human server's service time by comparing dedicated and shared queues using data from a supermarket. Pooling directly affects servers' service rate due to the social loafing effect and competition effect, and also indirectly affects the service rate via its impact on the queue length. Taking advantage of the supermarket's checkout layout that acts as a natural experiment, we empirically investigate these impacts using a data set containing checkout transaction details, as well as the queue information collected from video recordings in the supermarket. We find that servers in dedicated queues are about 10.7% faster than those in shared queues, after controlling for the queue length, mainly due to the social loafing effect. We also demonstrate that pooling has an indirect negative effect on the service time through its impact on the queue length. In addition, the queue configuration's direct effect and its indirect queue length effect function independently to each other. In aggregation, the social loafing effect dominates and servers slow down (a 6.86% increase in service time) in shared queues. |
| Date: | 28 October 2016 |
| Time: | 11:00am - 12:00noon |
| Speaker: |
Dr Jingqi Wang The University of Hong Kong |
| Venue: | Room 7-207, 7/F, Academic 3 |
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