Conducting the Visiting Professor series under the Kompetisi Kampus Merdeka Program (PKKM), Management Study Program, Faculty of Economics and Business (FEB), Universitas Sebelas Maret (UNS) Surakarta, invited Prof. Daniel Chicksand from Birmingham Business School, UK. The event conducted virtually on Thursday, October 6th, 2022, discusses Queuing Theory in Operation Management Research.

Through the Zoom Cloud Meeting platform, the agenda was attended by 80 participants and was led by Dr. Yong Dirgiatmo, a lecturer of the Management Study Program, as Moderator. In this agenda, Prof. Chicksand delivered material entitled ‘Operation Research, Capacity Management, and Queuing Theory’ for about 75 minutes, divided into two sessions.

Starting the presentation, Prof. Chicksand explained the definition of capacity management, which involves business capacity, market demand, and forecast. Meanwhile, a business needs capacity management because of the need to align production capacity to market demand. Production capacity that is lower than market demand will lead to production delay and loss of sales opportunity, on the contrary, when production capacity is too big, it will lead to higher costs.

“You can manage long-term market demand by storing products. For instance, when inventory (low capacity) is not aligned with market demand, such as the Covid-19 case leading to long queues at a hospital and empty products in a supermarket. Meanwhile, when product inventory exceeds market demand, there will be many unsold products, leftover, or, in a restaurant setting, empty table,” said Prof. Chicksand.

Further, Prof. Chicksand explains about the techniques available to measure market demand fluctuation, alternative production planning, and mixed planning. Meanwhile, regarding queuing theory, Prof. Chicksand states that ‘queue’ does not always bear a negative connotation because the absence of queue signs an over-capacity. “Queuing theory is usually applied in staff downsizing, schedule planning, and inventory planning to improve customer service,” he explains in the guest lecture as the continuation of the Supply Chain Management Guest Lecture.