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Cashier Queuing System (CASHUEUE)

Ronalene Cedeño, Junel Lawrence S. Cordova,
Fer Ann Joy E. Guarin, and Lorilyn P. Daquioag
University of the Immaculate Conception, Davao City, Philippines

ABSTRACT

The main objective of the study was to develop an improved cashier

queuing system for the University of the Immaculate Conception that
would notify the students via SMS if their priority number is nearly on
queue. The device has an Android application for the user to reserve
a priority number with the real time viewing on the teller’s number
and the queued number. Bluetooth shield was used on this device for
the data transmission from the kiosk device to the number display. A
researcher-made questionnaire was used for evaluation and a 15-trial
functionality test procedure was conducted to assess the functionality of
the system, and the consistency of the results. Furthermore, the results
proved that the system was fully functioning and consistent.

KEYWORDS: Cashier queuing system, Android application, data

transmission, SMS notification

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INTRODUCTION and line standing for groups of people. A virtual type of queuing system
is also sometimes used where students are given a priority number to
Background of the Study be in the queue to avoid line cutting and line standing, but this still does
not solve the problem of waiting in line for too long which causes the
If there is more customer demand for a service than can be students to dally and be late for the exams.
provided, a waiting line occurs. Waiting lines are often applied in
establishments where many people wait for their turn to acquire certain With that, the researchers developed an improved cashier queuing
goods, products or services. Common establishments such as banks, system with Short Message Service (SMS) notification in order to solve
grocery stores, airports, amusement parks, movie theatres and schools the problems faced by physical and virtual queuing systems employed
normally use a first-come first-served waiting line priority rule which is in the university. The improved system would provide the ability for
achieved with the use of an effective queuing system (Maister,1985). students in the queue line to be able to leave the physical line and
attend exams or tend to other activities while their priority number is
Ideally, a line queuing system must be fast, reliable and hassle- still far from the number served. The system would be beneficial to the
free. Many queuing systems have been developed in order to address university, especially, to the students who pay at the cashier.
these requirements.

However many problems still occur in the line queuing scheme, Research Objectives
especially in a physical type of line. One of the most noticeable and
prevalent problem is cutting in line or queue jumping. Queue jumping The purpose of this study was to develop a device to improve the
causes the first-come first-served rule to be less effective since it fails to queuing system of the University of the Immaculate Conception (UIC).
follow the correct priority. This problem generally cannot be avoided
because most people do not object to those cutting in line. According to Specifically, it sought to measure the level of the efficiency of
a study done by Milgram (1986), a person cutting in line only has a 54% the device at the cashier’s office in terms of its functionality such as
chance that others in the line will object, thus raising the possibility that (a) accepting one peso coin for access code or SMS notification, (b)
the person will perform the said act. Another frequent problem occurs accepting reservation through Android application, (c) printing the
when the service provided is tedious or takes too long to cater. In one queue number, (d) enabling the alarm when the coin container is at a
advertisement by Federal Express, it is stated that waiting is frustrating, critical level, (e) displaying the real time queue number, and (f) sending
demoralizing, agonizing, aggravating, annoying, time consuming and notification to the user for the current number served.
incredibly expensive. Slow moving and long lines make this statement
acceptable – waiting for a long time causes the people in line to be
stressed and aggravated (Maister, 1980).

Currently in the University of the Immaculate Conception, a physical

type of first-come first-served queuing system is used in cashiers during
enrollment and exams. It is also observable that many problems occur
with the given system, specifically, queue jumping, long and slow lines

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Review of Related Literature Ceonceptual Framework

This part consisted of various related readings made by the INPUT PROCESS OUTPUT
researchers to enrich the contents of the study.
Student’s ID Generating Priority
Number Number Printed Priority
A payment queuing system was developed by Abergas, Balboa Number
Student’s Phone Checking Priority
and Gabrinao (2014) from De La Salle University – Dasmarinas which SMS Notification
Number Number with Respect
featured an Android application. The system as a working whole was to the Current Number Number Display
Cashier Controls
composed of a client program that accepted user input regarding Being Served
transaction information, a MySQL server served as a backend database,
and a P.O.S. (point of sale) program allowed the user to view and Figure 1. Conceptual framework of the cashueue at the cashier
process transactions in queue. In addition, a separate notification
program outputs to monitor the current transactions being serviced
and its corresponding P.O.S. terminal. It also displayed as well the Figure 1 shows the conceptual framework of the improved cashier
current queue length of both minor and major transactions. The queuing system. The student trying to obtain a priority number and
interfacing of all involved components was managed by a wireless the student’s contact number serves as the inputs in order to generate
router hosting a local area network. All components were connected and print a priority number. The cashier controls also serve as an
through cat5 cables with the exception of the Android client program input to control the current number being served. The current number
which interacted wirelessly. is displayed in 7-segment LEDs. The system also checks if a priority
number is close to the current number being served. In that case, an
In a study done by Khiaonarong (2000), the creation of modern SMS notification is sent to the holder of the given priority number.
electronic payment systems in Thailand was examined. The study
raised relevant issues, including the development of laws supporting
electronic payments, the providing of liquidity for payment settlements,
the inclusion of risk reduction measures, the reduction of cheque float
through electronic data interchange, and the management of change in
payment systems

Another study done by Chai (2013) provided reference for

decision at the issue of optimizing the quantity of service cashier
desks, improving service efficiency and decreasing operation costs. The
study analyzed supermarket cashier system queuing issues through
establishing M/M/C queuing model on basis of operation research.

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METHOD Research Locale

This section discusses the research design, research locale, research The study was conducted at the University of the Immaculate
evaluators, research instrument, technical flowchart, data collection, Conception (UIC), Annex Campus located at Bonifacio St., Davao City.
and statistical tool. University of Immaculate Conception is a Roman Catholic University
and has three campuses in Davao City: the main campus located at Fr.
Selga St., Bankerohan, and the annex campus located at Bonifacio St.,
Research Design and the Elementary and High School campuses at Bajada, Davao City.

This study made use of the engineering design process with The study was implemented at the cashier area of the school where
iteration techniques and descriptive approach. there are three counters that can accommodate the number of students
in the campus. There are also sixteen (16) seats available in the waiting
Engineering design process consists of a series of steps that engineers area intended for the students while waiting to pay.
follow to come up with a solution to a problem. The researchers made
observations and experiments to design, develop and test circuitries
which would accept one peso coin for access code or SMS notification, Research Evaluators
accept reservation through Android application, print the queue
number, enable the alarm when the coin container is at a critical level, Purposive quota sampling design was used to choose the twenty
display the real time queue number, and send notification to the user evaluators who tested the functionality and durability of the project.
for the current number served. Then, iteration techniques were done in Four (4) of whom came from the Faculty of the Engineering and
testing to make modifications or changes in the design until a particular Architecture Program, two (2) were cashier tellers and 14 were students
solution was found in building up a working prototype. Descriptive of the University of the Immaculate Conception.
approach refers to describing the data and characteristics of what is
being studied. It involved interpretation of the evaluators’ responses
on the level of functionality of the prototype coming from each of its Research Instrument
feature being subjected to tests the time it takes for the message to be
delivered, speed of the thermal printer to print priority number and The researcher-made questionnaire composed of questions with
time it takes to display the queued number and teller’s number, the regards to the levels of efficiency of the device/system in terms of input/
researcher has done 15 trials using functionality test procedure and all sensor, process and output of the device. There were four questions for
of the items in the researcher-made questionnaire. the inputs three questions for the processes, and four questions for the
output devices.

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Technical Flowchart Figure 2 shows the block diagram of the improved cashier queuing
system. For easier visualization, the system is divided into three parts
– the cashier controls, the user control, and the multiple outputs. The
cashier controls are multiple Android applications that control the
current number being served. The number of cashier controls depends
on the number of tellers that operate. The current number being served
is updated on the server.

The user control is composed of the coin slot and the tablet where
the students provide their contact numbers and pay a peso in order to
generate and get priority numbers. The priority numbers are saved on
a database in the server, which are compared to the current number
being served to check if a Short Message Service (SMS) should be sent
to the contact number associated with the priority number.

The multiple outputs are the seven-segment displays, the priority

number printer, and the SMS sending module. The seven-segment
display functions as a display for the current number. It is continuously
updated depending on the cashier controls. The priority number printer
produces a printed output of a number which represents the students’
virtual queue number. Lastly, the GSM module is a device that sends a
message to a contact number. If a priority number is close to the current
number being served, the GSM module delivers a message alerting the
student correlated with the priority number to prepare and be at the
cashier’s location.

Data Collection

Figure 2. Technical flowchart of the cashueue Functionality test procedures were conducted to test the
consistency of some of the critical components of the system in terms
of the time it takes to perform each of its assigned operation (receipt
printing, displaying numbers, sending SMS notifications). Each test was
done with 15 trials.

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The researcher conducted an evaluation to the selected students, Ethical Consideration

engineering faculty members and cashier tellers of the university through
the questionnaires given for further comments and recommendations The study provided no sensitive ethical issues and the researchers did
regarding the functionality of the said device. strictly follow the rigors of research to achieve scientific soundness. The
researchers also did not use animals, biologics and human participants
during the experimentation or in any part of the methodology. This
Data Analysis study was submitted to the UIC Research Ethics Committee (UIC REC)
for the review of the measures that the researchers should follow.
Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) software was used to
calculate the t-value, p-value and standard deviation of the Functionality
Test Procedure (FTP). RESULTS

The researcher-made questionnaire was based on a Likert scale The following sections of this report constitute the significant
with the following ratings; 5 for Strongly Agree, 4 for Moderately findings of the study with respect to the objectives stated in the
Agree, 3 for Agree, 2 for Disagree and lastly 1 for Highly Disagree. The introductory section.
scale was chosen to statistically represent the observation of evaluators
when the device was implemented in the real scenario. After a thorough experimentation, the final features of Cashueue
are as follows:
Mean level was determined using the data in scale shown below.

Figure 3. The (a) Thermal Printer and (b) 1 Peso Coin Slot

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Figure 3 shows (a) thermal printer which prints the priority Figure 5 shows the interface of the system which serves as its
number of the students with the corresponding date and time and an touchscreen user-interface. The component provides a visual display
access code intended for those who have chosen the receipt with access of the teller’s number, current number being served, and the available
code option, (b) coin slot machine operated by the insertion of a one- priority number. Furthermore, it is where the user inputs his/her ID
peso coin only. number to be able to get a printed priority number.

Functionality Test Procedure

Table 1. Test data for the time duration of the system’s capability of
displaying the queued numbers and teller’s number

Figure 4. The Number Display of the Cashueue

Figure 4 shows the number display of the Cashueue where a 5-inch

common cathode seven segment light emitting diodes (LED) displayed
the teller’s number and the queued number.

Table 1 shows the functionality test procedure for the time delay
in displaying the queue number. The results show that the delay is
Figure 5. The Kiosk Device User-interface consistent.

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Table 2. Test data for the time duration of the system’s capability of Table 3. Test data for the time duration of the system’s capability of
sending SMS notification printing the priority number

Table 2 shows the functionality test procedure for the time duration Table 3 shows the functionality test procedure for the time duration
of the system’s capability to send an SMS notification. The results show of the system’s capability to print the priority number. The results show
that there is no significant difference for the time it takes to send an that the thermal printing time is consistent.
SMS notification.

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Responses of Evaluators Table 5. Level of efficiency of the system’s sensitivity and functionality
in terms of operation

Table 4. Level of efficiency of the system’s sensitivity and functionality

in terms of sensors

Table 5 shows the data describing the level of efficiency of the

system’s sensitivity in terms of operation. It can be seen from the table
that the device is very efficient and is able to comply the corresponding
objectives.

Table 6. Level of efficiency of the system’s sensitivity and functionality

in terms of device
Table 4 shows the data describing the level of efficiency of the
system’s sensitivity in terms of sensors. Allowing the user to choose
whether to print only or with SMS notification got the lowest evaluation
because the researchers were not able to vividly explain the function of
these feature. The sensor exhibited very high efficiency as regards to its
capabilities in detecting one peso coin and other inputted data such as
mobile numbers and reservation.

Table 6 shows the data describing the level of efficiency of the

system’s sensitivity in terms of device. It can be gleaned from the table
that the device is very efficient and is able to meet its objectives.

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DISCUSSION in finding a Windows-based tablet with two USB ports and sometimes
internet connections were not stable.
This section discusses the findings, conclusion, after several
experiments and recommendations comes from the evaluators.
Recommendations

Findings The Cashueue was successfully made and can be used in companies
and universities. However, some recommendations were given to future
The results of this research indicate that the objective to create the researchers. It was recommended to add more security features such
Cashueue for the cashier of the University of the Immaculate Conception, as anti-theft vibration sensors and lock-pick sensors. Furthermore, the
Annex was met. The features of the device are: (1) accepting one peso device can be fabricated even better with the use of faster components
coin for access code or SMS notification, (2) accepting reservation especially with the thermal printer which takes some time to print
through android application, (3) printing the queue number, (4) the queue number. Improved GUI on android application is also
enabling alarms when the coin container is at a critical level, (5) recommended so that the device would become more presentable and
displaying the real time queue number and (6) sending notification to user-friendly.
the user for the current number served.

REFERENCES
Conclusions
Abergas, L.A. (2014). Development of Payment Queuing System
The researcher concluded that thorough research and experiment with Android Application (Doctoral dissertation, De La Salle
led to the development of the Cashueue. The result of the evaluation University).
signifies that the system is working and the results supports the
consistency of the system’s features as observed in the comment and Chai, C.F. (2013). Problem Analysis and Optimizing of Setting
responses of the evaluators. Service Desks in Supermarket Based on M/M/C Queuing
System. In The 19th International Conference on Industrial
It can be concluded that the Cashueue was an effective device for Engineering and Engineering Management (pp. 833-841).
queuing. It solves the problem faced by physical and virtual queuing Springer Berlin Heidelberg.
systems employed in the university. The system is able to accept one
peso coin for access code or SMS notification, accepts reservation Khiaonarong, T. (2000). Electronic payment systems development
through Android application, prints the queue number, enables the in Thailand. International Journal of Information Management,
alarm when the coin container is at a critical level, displays the real 20(1), 59-72.
time queue number and sends notification to the user for the current
number served. Larson, R.C. (1987). Perspectives on Queues: Social Justice and
the Psychology of Queueing. Operations Research Forum, 895
The problems encountered by the researchers were the difficulties – 905. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/opre.35.6.895

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Maister, D. (1985). The Psychology of Waiting Lines. Retrieved Coffee Bean Classifier
from http://davidmaister.com/articles/the-psychology-of- Jerameel J. Cabalquinto, Jon Dexter H. Dumdum,
waiting-lines/. John Michael G. Pusad, and Juvie Pauline L. Relacion
University of the Immaculate Conception, Davao City, Philippines
Milgram, S., Libety, H. J., Toledo, R. & Wackenhut, J. (1986).
Response to Intrusion Into Waiting Lines. Journal of Personality
of Social Psychology, 51(4), 683-689. Date retrieved: ABSTRACT
September 21, 2006
This study aimed to develop a coffee bean classifier system that would
Zhou, R. & Soman, D. (2003). Looking Back: Exploring the obtain the weight of the coffee bean sack, detect the moisture content
Psychology of Queuing and the Effect of the Number of People of the coffee beans and identify the beans according to its classification
Behind. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/346247 517-530 (grade 1, 2 or 3). The device would automatically compute the cost
of the coffee bean sack in accordance to the reading of the sensors.
The device has a tablet computer that would display the reading of
the device and print a receipt for the sellers and buyers. This study
made use of the engineering design process with iteration techniques
and descriptive approach. A researcher-made questionnaire was used in
evaluation and functionality test procedures (each component with 15
trials each) were conducted to assess the functionality and stability of
the device. The evaluation results signified the working functionality of
the project. It solved the problem faced by physical and manual systems
employed by the coffee bean buyers.

KEYWORDS: Computer Engineering, design project, coffee bean, coffee

bean classifier, weight, moisture content, descriptive, Philippines

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