Internal and external factor analysis in bottleneck detection in shop sales: the case of grocery shops in Lithuania
ENThe optimization of supermarket processes as well as the increase in productivity and profitability of shop sales requires extensive knowledge of bottlenecks within the sales processes as bottlenecks limit the capacity of shop sales. Bottlenecks refer to bursty processes in analogy to the occurrence of bit-errors in data transmission systems. The aim of the paper is to analyse external and internal factors in shop sales underpinning the examination of external and internal factors in shop sales based on the collected data of two supermarkets in Lithuania. In this context, concentrated arrival of customers is identified as an external factor. By internal factors, the buyers’ waiting time in the queue to the cash register as well as the payment processing time at the cash register are meant. In this work the internal factors of the payment process are modelled by gap processes where the obtained parameters such as the buyers’ concentration and the buyers’ probability allow a good comparison of the payment related processes. This work aims at achieving customer quality improvement through prevention of queuing. The obtained results show that the waiting time in the queue to the cash register is quite bursty whereas the payment processing time at the cash register is quite regularly distributed. Therefore, the conclusion can be drawn that at the cash register short periods of high activities are followed by longer periods of inactivity. Keywords: Buyers’ Burstiness, Cashiers’ Bottleneck, Payment Process, Buyers’ Waiting Time in the Queue to the Cash Register, Payment Processing Time at the Cash Register.
