APPLICATION OF QUEUING MODEL IN IMPROVING SERVICE DELIVERY IN UNITED BANK FOR AFRICA PLC MAIN BRANCH, GARKI ABUJA

APPLICATION OF QUEUING MODEL IN IMPROVING SERVICE DELIVERY IN UNITED BANK FOR AFRICA PLC MAIN BRANCH, GARKI ABUJA

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1     BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Time is a major determinant of individual or organizational success and/or failure. An effective usage of time will most likely lead to success, while time abuse or mismanagement will inevitably lead to delay in service, loss of income and consequently, business failure. Man has evolved into a time conscious being, bearing in mind that he has limited period to accomplished goals that are incremental in nature. In this modern era our daily life is encompassed by routines such as driving the kids to school, keeping the garden, shopping, fixing of furniture, banking, cooking and regular exercise, which demand effective usage of time. An attempt to over stay or spend much time in one of such activities will lead to a delay or failure to accomplish the other. Inherently, customers have developed the sense of getting results and replies on demand, such that they can move to the next scheduled activity without delay.

Unavoidably, all the sectors; agriculture, media, transport, oil and gas and mining among others in the country, depend directly or indirectly on the banking sector. For instance, an agriculturist who wants to import fertilizer from India will have to use the bank for financial transaction. If there is delay in the transaction, the delivery of fertilizer may also be delayed.

Customers arrive banking halls and ATMs in a random pattern, which frequently requires joining a queue, when the arrival rate is more than the service rate, they will have to wait till it is their turn for service; although, there are exceptions where high priority customers are attended to, irrespective of their time of arrival. Queuing is pleasant or endurable when the waiting time is small, but when queues become crowded and stagnant; agitation, discomfort and quarrels, even robbery, often breakout.

According to Cowling and Newman (1995), service quality has been widely used to evaluate the performance of banking services. Nowadays, with the development of information technology, customers increasingly expect higher services. At the same time, most of them are becoming more time conscious and wanting more convenience. In a country where customers queue in filling stations, restaurants, saloons, bus stops and banks, they are always on the look for a better alternative where they can spend less time to get the service they desire. However, queuing becomes an unavoidable bottleneck, when customers are faced with service alternatives that are synonymous with choosing between the deep blue sea and the devil. A queuing process consists of customers arriving at service facilities, then waiting in a line (queue) if all servers are busy, eventually receiving service, and finally departing from the facility. Thus, a queuing system is a set of customers, a set of servers, and an order whereby customers arrive and are served.

A common slogan in the U.S Army is “Hurry up and wait”. In many occasions in life, we had had to queue up, because of congestion i.e. the demand of customers on a particular facility is beyond what it could cope with. Many practical applications of queuing problems are encountered in Traffic flow, scheduling and facility design, employee allocation  and telephone.

The common experience in Nigeria is that most banks do not have the facilities and capacities to service the number of customers without much delay on the part of the customers. The problem in this regard had been that though bank customers for instance, have always been desirous of spending the least possible time in banking transactions, this age-long desire is yet to be met by the banks. Banks on the other hand, want to attract, retain customers and at the same time optimize profit. Profit making in banks is a function of management ability to provide efficient services to customers at little or no time wastage (Agbadudu, 1995).

To curb the menace and epidemic of queuing that has plagued its banking system, in the recent past, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) had initiated and implemented initiatives and policies varying from the liquidation of banks to the cashless policy which includes e-banking, mobile banking and the use of automated teller machines (ATMs). Punch Newspaper (2012) reported that 60,000 Nigerians depend on   one ATM, whereas the ideal number is 15,000 people to one ATM.

In  United Bank For Africa Plc Main Branch, Garki Abuja, the situation is not different. Its population which includes; farmers, teachers and lecturers, traders, business men and women, and a large proportion students also face the menace of poor service delivery at ATMs as a result of queuing. At UBA Plc. customers are seen sweating profusely from heat and long hours of standing in the queue to use the ATM. Poor network, insufficient and inefficient ATMs are some of the perceived causes of these queues. Furthermore, the queues in UBA Plc. can also be attributed to unavailability of banks to meet the demand of the increasingly population. It against this background that this study seeks to examine the application of queuing model in improving service delivery in United Bank For Africa Plc Main Branch, Garki Abuja.

1.2     STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

The obvious cost implications of customers waiting, ranges from idle time spent when queue builds up, which results in man-hour loss, to loss of goodwill, which may occur when customers are dissatisfied with a system. However, a number of customers go to bank hoping to complete a transaction within a particular period of time and return to some other activity but eventually spend unimaginable long time waiting to be served; however, what is the expected time a particular customer is to spend in the bank? The focus of this research work therefore is to carry out to examine the application of queuing model in improving service delivery in United Bank For Africa Plc Main Branch, Garki Abuja.

1.3     AIM AND OBJECTIVES

1.3.1  AIM

The aim of this research is to examine the application of queuing model in improving service delivery in United Bank For Africa Plc Main Branch, Garki Abuja.

1.3.2  OBJECTIVES

The specific objectives of this research work are to estimate:

1. Traffic intensity in the bank.
2. The possibility that a customer will have to wait for service.
3. The mean time a customer is to spend in the ATM system.

1.4     SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

At the end of this research work, the researcher intends that it provides valuable information on queuing system and customer satisfaction to banks, bank customers, financial policy makers and the society at large; thereby prompting actions toward a better customer service experience.

• This research can help bank ATM to increase its QoS (Quality of Service), by anticipating, if there are many customers in the queue.
• The result of this paper work may become the reference to analyse the current system and improve the next system.
• Banks can now estimate the number of customers waiting in the queue and the number of customers going away each day.

1.5     DELIMITATION OF THE STUDY

The scope of this study is limited to only one commercial bank  that is United Bank For Africa Plc Main Branch, Garki Abuja.

1.6     LIMITATION OF THE STUDY

Some of the challenges faced at the cause of this work are;

• The research was conducted within limited time
• Unavailability of finance
• Gathering of data through observation was time consuming and labour intensive.
• There is a room for systematic bias on the part of the researcher as he collects the data.

1.7     DEFINITION OF TERMS

Queue: a collection of items in which only the earliest added item may be accessed. It is line feeding a number of servers.

Service delivery: Service delivery can be defined as any contact with the public administration during which customers – citizens, residents or enterprises – seek or provide data, handle their affairs or fulfill their duties.

Server:  an operation fed by a queue

Utilization: a measure of how busy the system is.

ATM: Automated Teller Machine