The SMU Office of Postgraduate Research Programmes organised its second Brown-bag Seminar on “Please Don't Make Me Wait: Influence of Customers' Waiting Preference and No-Show Behaviour on Appointment Systems". The Seminar, which was held virtually on 23 July 2021, was open to all SMU postgraduate research students and faculty members. There were about 20 participants at the Seminar. The student speaker, ZHANG Ruijie, a 3rd Year SMU PhD in Business (Operations Management) candidate presented on her topic, mentioned above. Associate Professor of Operations Management, LIM Yun Fong chaired the session.
Participants gained insights from Ruijie and Associate Professor LIM about the relationship between the different types of appointment systems [Equally-Spaced (ES) and Equal-Waiting (EW)] and the likelihood of customers turning up for their appointments in a hospital setting.
ES appointment systems, where the inter-appointment times between consecutive arrivals (i.e., 30 minutes) are equal, results in longer expected waiting times for customers who arrived later. Hence, this makes later appointment slots unappealing to consumers. However, EW scheduling systems with an equal expected waiting time across all appointments, increases the likelihood of customers showing up for their appointments. Through the study of human behaviour and appointment systems’ performance, RuIjie illustrates how to better utilise existing appointment systems to cope with customer demand. Watch the recording of the Seminar.
