Last Monday, we described a pull system in a factory and how it differed from a push system often used by software teams. We are following that post with a 10-day series looking at push and pull systems in everyday life, asking what you think and offering our thoughts.
Scenario number 7 is the football stadium
Image courtesy of Caio on pexels.com
Our thoughts
This is a very difficult system to manage because of the sudden influx of people (demand) which peaks twice on a match day: just before and just after the match. It has to be able to handle a huge amount of traffic for a short period of time. This is a PUSH system, but with a kind of imposed work-in-progress limit (i.e. the number of ticketed seats available per match).
However, unlike the art gallery mentioned a few days ago, it can be difficult to distribute the crowd evenly. Disasters like Hillsborough highlight potential problems with this kind of system: hopefully, nowadays, such a disaster can’t happen due to the limited tickets (i.e. seating only) and emergency buffers available (i.e. the crowd can spill onto the pitch if the seating area becomes over-crowded).
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