Teachers' Forum: Spreadsheet Modeling and Simulation Improves Understanding of Queues

Process-driven spreadsheet queuing simulation is a better vehicle for understanding queue behavior than queuing theory or dedicated simulation software. Spreadsheet queuing simulation has many pedagogical benefits in a business school end-user modeling course, including developing students' intuition , giving them experience with active modeling skills, and providing access to tools. Spreadsheet queuing simulations are surprisingly easy to program, even for queues with balking and reneging. The ease of prototyping in spreadsheets invites thoughtless design, so careful spreadsheet programming practice is important. Spreadsheet queuing simulation is inferior to dedicated simulation software for analyzing queues but is more likely to be available to managers and students. Q ueuing theory has always been a staple in survey courses on management science. Although it is a powerful tool for computing certain steady-state performance measures, queuing theory is a poor vehicle for teaching students about what transpires in queues. Process-driven spreadsheet queuing simulation is a much better vehicle. Although Evans and Olson [1998, p. 170] state that " a serious limitation of spreadsheets for waiting-line models is that it is not possible to include behavior such as balking " and Liberatore and Ny-dick [forthcoming] indicate that a limitation of spreadsheet simulation is the in