Queueing Theory Application in Food Supply Chain Management: A Classified Review

In this paper, the contribution and application of queuing theory in food supply chain management were reviewed. Although many published articles have studied food supply chain management, none of them have focused on the application of queuing theory. This paper first briefly compares queueing theory with other operations research methods and explains the reason for choosing this mathematical method. This review proposes an innovative procedure (based on content analysis) for categorizing food supply chain issues in different areas with queueing theory. We also perform additional content and descriptive analyses to identify trends in the extant literature on food supply chain management and queuing theory application. The results of our investigations are presented based on five perspectives: food supply chain management, decision level, type of food product, queuing system, modeling methodology. Our studies show that extensive gaps are dealing with the topic of this study. Also, a structured summary of each article is presented to provide comprehensive guidelines in this research area. Also, the challenges of this hybrid field were explored, and topics were suggested for future research. The purpose of this paper is to provide sufficient information for researchers who want to use queuing theory in various areas of food supply chain management.