TY  - CONF
TI  - Queueing Theory and Process Flow Performance
AU  - Chin, Chang-Sun
AD  - Ph.D., Honorary Fellow, Construction Engineering and Management Program, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Wisconsin, Madison, chin2@wisc.edu
ED  - Cuperus, Ype
ED  - Hirota, Ercilia Hitomi
PY  - 2009
DA  - 2009/07/15
T2  - 17th Annual Conference of the International Group for Lean Construction
C3  - 17th Annual Conference of the International Group for Lean Construction
CY  - Taipei, Taiwan
SP  - 247
EP  - 256
AB  - Queuing delay occurs when a number of entities arrive for services at a work station where a server(s) has limited capacity so that the entities must wait until the server becomes available. We see this phenomenon in the physical production environment as well as in the office environment (e.g., document processing). The obvious solution may be to increase the number of servers to increase capacity of the work station, but other options can attain the same level of performance improvement. The study selects two different projects, investigates their submittal review/approval process and uses queuing theory to determine the major causes of long lead times. Queuing theory provides good categorical indices—variation factor, utilization factor and process time factor—for diagnosing the degree of performance degradation from queuing. By measuring the magnitude of these factors and adjusting their levels using various strategies, we can improve system performance. The study also explains what makes the submittal process of two projects perform differently and suggests options for improving performance in the context of queuing theory.
KW  - Process time
KW  - queueing theory
KW  - submittal
KW  - variation
KW  - utilization
L1  - https://www.iglc.net/papers/details/627/pdf
UR  - https://www.iglc.net/papers/details/627
DB  - IGLC.net
LA  - English
N1  - Export date: 04 October 2026
ER  -