IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ejores/v253y2016i3p777-790.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A queueing model for managing small projects under uncertainties

Author

Listed:
  • Bai, Jiaru
  • So, Kut C.
  • Tang, Christopher

Abstract

We consider a situation in which a home improvement project contractor has a team of regular crew members who receive compensation even when they are idle. Because both projects arrivals and the completion time of each project are uncertain, the contractor needs to manage the utilization of his crews carefully. One common approach adopted by many home improvement contractors is to accept multiple projects to keep his crew members busy working on projects to generate positive cash flows. However, this approach has a major drawback because it causes “intentional” (or foreseeable) project delays. Intentional project delays can inflict explicit and implicit costs on the contractor when frustrating customers abandon their projects and/or file complaints or lawsuits. In this paper, we present a queueing model to capture uncertain customer (or project) arrivals and departures, along with the possibility of customer abandonment. Also, associated with each admission policy (i.e., the maximum number of projects that the contractor will accept), we model the underlying tradeoff between accepting too many projects (that can increase customer dissatisfaction) and accepting too few projects (that can reduce crew utilization). We examine this tradeoff analytically so as to determine the optimal admission policy and the optimal number of crew members. We further apply our model to analyze other issues including worker productivity and project pricing. Finally, our model can be extended to allow for multiple classes of projects with different types of crew members.

Suggested Citation

  • Bai, Jiaru & So, Kut C. & Tang, Christopher, 2016. "A queueing model for managing small projects under uncertainties," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 253(3), pages 777-790.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:ejores:v:253:y:2016:i:3:p:777-790
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ejor.2016.02.052
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0377221716301059
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ejor.2016.02.052?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Diwakar Gupta & Eli M. Snir & Yibin Chen, 2015. "Contractors’ and Agency Decisions and Policy Implications in A+B Bidding," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 24(1), pages 159-177, January.
    2. Martin L. Weitzman, 1980. "The "Ratchet Principle" and Performance Incentives," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 11(1), pages 302-308, Spring.
    3. Dharma Kwon, H. & Lippman, Steven A. & Tang, Christopher S., 2010. "Optimal time-based and cost-based coordinated project contracts with unobservable work rates," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 126(2), pages 247-254, August.
    4. Magott, Jan & Skudlarski, Kamil, 1993. "Estimating the mean completion time of PERT networks with exponentially distributed durations of activities," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 71(1), pages 70-79, November.
    5. Christopher S. Tang & Kairen Zhang & Sean X. Zhou, 2015. "Incentive Contracts for Managing a Project with Uncertain Completion Time," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 24(12), pages 1945-1954, December.
    6. Tony Chen & Ted Klastorin & Michael R. Wagner, 2015. "Incentive Contracts in Serial Stochastic Projects," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 17(3), pages 290-301, July.
    7. Paul S. Adler & Avi Mandelbaum & Viên Nguyen & Elizabeth Schwerer, 1995. "From Project to Process Management: An Empirically-Based Framework for Analyzing Product Development Time," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 41(3), pages 458-484, March.
    8. Pennings, Enrico & Lint, Onno, 1997. "The option value of advanced R & D," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 103(1), pages 83-94, November.
    9. David Assaf & Moshe Haviv, 1990. "Reneging from Processor Sharing Systems and Random Queues," Mathematics of Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 15(1), pages 129-138, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Pei, Zhi & Dai, Xu & Yuan, Yilun & Du, Rui & Liu, Changchun, 2021. "Managing price and fleet size for courier service with shared drones," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 104(C).
    2. Bolandifar, Ehsan & DeHoratius, Nicole & Olsen, Tava, 2023. "Modeling abandonment behavior among patients," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 306(1), pages 243-254.
    3. Maddah, Bacel & Nasr, Walid W. & Charanek, Ali, 2017. "A multi-station system for reducing congestion in high-variability queues," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 262(2), pages 602-619.
    4. Qihui Bu, 2024. "Transient Analysis for a Queuing System with Impatient Customers and Its Applications to the Pricing Strategy of a Video Website," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 12(13), pages 1-14, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Dharma Kwon, H. & Lippman, Steven A. & Tang, Christopher S., 2011. "Sourcing decisions of project tasks with exponential completion times: Impact on operating profits," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 134(1), pages 138-150, November.
    2. Shi Chen & Ted Klastorin & Michael R. Wagner, 2021. "Designing practical coordinating contracts in decentralized projects," Naval Research Logistics (NRL), John Wiley & Sons, vol. 68(2), pages 183-198, March.
    3. Zhihua Chen & Yanfei Lan & Ruiqing Zhao & Changjing Shang, 2019. "Deadline-based incentive contracts in project management with cost salience," Fuzzy Optimization and Decision Making, Springer, vol. 18(4), pages 451-473, December.
    4. Morvarid Rahmani & Guillaume Roels & Uday S. Karmarkar, 2017. "Collaborative Work Dynamics in Projects with Co‐Production," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 26(4), pages 686-703, April.
    5. Morvarid Rahmani & Guillaume Roels & Uday S. Karmarkar, 2018. "Team Leadership and Performance: Combining the Roles of Direction and Contribution," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(11), pages 5234-5249, November.
    6. Chen, Bo & Hall, Nicholas G., 2021. "Incentive schemes for resolving Parkinson’s Law in project management," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 288(2), pages 666-681.
    7. H. Dharma Kwon & Steven A. Lippman & Kevin F. McCardle & Christopher S. Tang, 2010. "Project Management Contracts with Delayed Payments," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 12(4), pages 692-707, October.
    8. Anil Aswani & Zuo-Jun Max Shen & Auyon Siddiq, 2019. "Data-Driven Incentive Design in the Medicare Shared Savings Program," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 67(4), pages 1002-1026, July.
    9. Lukas, Elmar & Mölls, Sascha & Welling, Andreas, 2016. "Venture capital, staged financing and optimal funding policies under uncertainty," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 250(1), pages 305-313.
    10. Cassimon, Danny & Engelen, Peter-Jan & Yordanov, Vilimir, 2011. "Compound Real Option Valuation with Phase-Specific Volatility: a Multi-phase Mobile Payments Case Study," MPRA Paper 46053, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Charles Bellemare & Bruce Shearer, 2014. "Measuring Ratchet Effects within a Firm: Evidence from a Field Experiment varying Contractual Commitment," Cahiers de recherche 1401, Centre de recherche sur les risques, les enjeux économiques, et les politiques publiques.
    12. Schnedler, Wendelin & Vanberg, Christoph, 2014. "Playing ‘hard to get’: An economic rationale for crowding out of intrinsically motivated behavior," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 106-115.
    13. Smith, Robert P. & Eppinger, Steven D., 1991. "Identifying controlling features of engineering design iteration," Working papers 3348-91., Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Sloan School of Management.
    14. Alessandro Acquisti & Hal R. Varian, 2005. "Conditioning Prices on Purchase History," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 24(3), pages 367-381, May.
    15. Karan Girotra & Christian Terwiesch & Karl T. Ulrich, 2007. "Valuing R& D Projects in a Portfolio: Evidence from the Pharmaceutical Industry," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 53(9), pages 1452-1466, September.
    16. M.Ellman., 2010. "What Did The Study of The Soviet Economy Contribute to Mainstream Economics?," VOPROSY ECONOMIKI, N.P. Redaktsiya zhurnala "Voprosy Economiki", vol. 3.
    17. Gary Charness & Peter Kuhn & Marie Claire Villeval, 2011. "Competition and the Ratchet Effect," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 29(3), pages 513-547.
    18. Roland, Gerard & Sekkat, Khalid, 2000. "Managerial career concerns, privatization and restructuring in transition economies," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 44(10), pages 1857-1872, December.
    19. Daiya Isogawa & Hiroshi Ohashi, 2019. "Price Effects of Target Ratcheting: A Progress Report on Medical Devices," The Japanese Economic Review, Japanese Economic Association, vol. 70(3), pages 331-340, September.
    20. Marco Capasso & Tania Treibich & Bart Verspagen, 2015. "The medium-term effect of R&D on firm growth," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 45(1), pages 39-62, June.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ejores:v:253:y:2016:i:3:p:777-790. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/eor .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.