Enhancing the customer experience is a critical success factor for the retail industry. One negative experience can cause a customer to take their business to the competition – and tell friends. One of the fundamental components of the customer’s shopping experience – and readily remembered because it becomes last – is the checkout process. Retailers who ensure a speedy checkout to their customers have a very strong competitive advantage.

PMC has vast experience performing Queue Management and Simulation Analyses to measure the current operating conditions of the checkout process, and to perform what-if scenario tests to test the impact of proposed process changes. Management, with the guidance provided by the powerful analytical and visual tools of simulation and animation, is well-equipped to address knotty strategic decisions (e.g., number and architectural configuration of checkout lanes) and tactical decisions (e.g., hour-by-hour and week-by-week staffing levels, thresholds of queue length for opening and closing checkout lanes, maximum number of items in the bascart eligible for the express lane).

Some benefits of Queue Management and Simulation Analysis for retail customers are:

• Reduce customer wait times
• Improve service levels
• Optimize number of associates
• Demonstrate the dynamic nature of the environment
• Exemplify variability issues

PMC utilizes all of the major simulation software languages and simulators to perform Queue Management and Simulation Analysis, including:

• Arena
• AutoMOD
• Enterprise Dynamics
• Service Model
• SIMUL8
• Witness
• AnyLogic