Server allocation and customer batching in a down-sizing central issue facility

The purpose of this research was to determine preferred server allocations and customer batch sizes for processing customers at an Army Central Issue Facility (CIF) under various manpower levels. The CIF is a retail warehouse which issues tactical clothing and equipment to individual soldiers. As a result of substantial Defense Department down-sizing, the CIF faces undetermined manpower reductions which will likely impact its customer service. An assembly line balancing perspective was used with the objective of minimizing increases in the customers' average time-in-system. Five server allocation heuristics and three customer batch sizes were evaluated using a simulation model developed from observations of the actual system. Results indicate that customer batch size has a greater affect on average time-in-system than does server allocation.