QUEUING

MODEL
Queuing system – a system in which items (or
customers) arrive at a station, wait in line (or queue),
obtain some kind of service, and then leave the system.
Customer population – the collection of all possible
customers
Arrival process – the way in which customers from the
population arrive for service.
Queuing process – the way customers wait for service
Queuing discipline – the customers are selected for
service
Service process – the way and rate at which the
customers are served
Departure process – the way items leave a queuing
system
One-step queuing system – a system in which items
leave after being served at a single work station.
Network of queues – A system in which an item
may proceed from one work station to another
before leaving the system.
Poisson distribution – a distribution that describes
the probability of a given number of arrivals
occurring in a given interval of time when the
interarrival time follows an exponential distribution.
Inter-arrival time – the amount of time between two
successive arrivals of customers in a queuing system
Two basic classes of interarrival time:
1.Deterministic, in which each successive customer
arrives after the same fixed and known amount of
time. A classic example is an assembly line, where the
jobs arrive at a station at unvarying time intervals
called the cycle time.
2.Probabilistic, in which the time between successive
arrivals is uncertain and varies. Probabilistic interarrival
times are described by a probability distribution.
 Characteristics of a waiting-line (often called queuing
system) system:

1. Arrivals or inputs to the system (the arrival process):

These have characteristics such as population size,
behaviour, and statistical distribution.
2. Queue discipline, or the waiting line itself (the
queuing process): Characteristics of the queue include
whether it is limited or unlimited in length and the
discipline of people or items in it.
Customer’s possible action in waiting lines:
Balking occurs when the customer decides not to enter the
waiting line. For example, you see that there are already 12
students waiting to meet with your professor, so you choose
to come back later.
Reneging occurs when the customer enters the waiting line
but leaves before being serviced. For example, you enter the
line waiting to meet with your professor, but after waiting 15
minutes and seeing little progress, you decide to leave.
Jockeying occurs when a customer changes from one line to
another, hoping to reduce the waiting time. A good example
of this is picking a line at the grocery store and changing to
another line in the hope of being served quicker.
The Service System
The service system is characterized by the
number of waiting lines, the number of
servers, the arrangement of the servers, the
arrival and service patterns, and the service
priority rules.
Single-line queuing system – a queuing system
in which the customers wait in a single line for
the next available server
Multiple-line queuing system – a queuing
system in which arriving customers may select
one of several lines in which to wait for service.
The waiting line itself is the second component of
a queuing system. The length of line can be either
limited or unlimited. A queue is limited when it
cannot, either by law or because of physical
restrictions, increase to an infinite length. A small
barbershop, for example, will have only a limited
number of chairs. A queue is unlimited when its
size is unrestricted, as in the case of the toll
booth serving arriving automobiles.
A second waiting-line characteristics deal with queue
discipline, which is the way the waiting customers are
selected for service. Some of the common ways are as
follows:
a) First-In-First-Out (FIFO) – the customers are served in the
order of their arrival in the line. The customers in a bank
and supermarket, for example, are selected in this way.
b) Last-In-First-Out (LIFO) – the customer who has arrived
most recently is processed first. An example arises in a
production process most recently
c) Priority selection. Each arriving customer is
given a priority and selected for service
accordingly. One example is patients arriving at
an emergency room of a hospital
Characteristics of a waiting-line (often called
queuing theory) system:
3. The service facility (the service process): Its
characteristics include its design and the
statistical distribution of service times.
Measuring a Queue’s Performance
Queuing Models help managers make decisions that balance
service cost with waiting line cost. Queuing analysis can obtain
many measures of a waiting-line system performance,
including the following:
1. Average time that each customer or object spends in the
queue
2. Average queue length
3. Average time that each customer spends in the system
(waiting time plus service time)
4. Average number of customers in the systems
5. Probability that the service facility will be idle
6. Utilization factor for the system
7.Probability of a specific number of customers in the system
Queuing Cost
One means of evaluating a service facility is to look at
total expected cost. Total cost is the sum of expected
service costs plus expected waiting costs.
 SINGLE-SERVER WAITING LINE MODEL
The easiest waiting line model involves a single-server, single-line, single-
phase system. The following assumptions are made when we model this
environment:
1. The customers are patient (no balking, reneging, or jockeying) and
come from a population that can be considered infinite.
2. Customer arrivals are described by a Poisson distribution with a mean
arrival rate of (lambda). This means that the time between successive
customer arrivals follows an exponential distribution with an average of
1/.
3. The customer service rate is described by a Poisson distribution with a
mean
service rate of (mu). This means that the service time for one
customer follows an exponential distribution with an average of
1/.
4. The waiting line priority rule used is first-come, first-served.
Formula
For
Single-
Server
Waiting
Line
Models
Example:
The computer lab at State University has a help desk to
assist students working on computer
spreadsheet assignments. The students patiently form a
single line in front of the desk to wait for
help. Students are served based on a first-come, first-
served priority rule. On average, 15 students
per hour arrive at the help desk. Student arrivals are best
described using a Poisson distribution.
The help desk server can help an average of 20 students
per hour, with the service rate being described by an
exponential distribution.
Calculate the following operating characteristics of
the service system.
(a) The average utilization of the help desk server
(b) The average number of students in the system
(c) The average number of students waiting in line
(d) The average time a student spends in the system
(e) The average time a student spends waiting in
line
(f) The probability of having more than 4 students in
the system
For the
Multiserver
Waiting Line
Model
Formula
 Assignment
The local Division of Motor Vehicles (DMV) is
concerned with its waiting line system. Currently, the
DMV uses a single-server, single-line, single-phase
system when processing license renewals. Based on
historical evidence, the average number of customers
arriving per hour is 9 and is described by a Poisson
distribution. The service rate is 12 customers per hour
with the service times following an exponential
distribution. The customers are patient and come from
an infinite population. The manager of the DMV would
like you to calculate the operational characteristics of
the waiting line system.
(see next slide for questions)
(a) What is the average system utilization?
(b) What is the average number of customers in
the system?
(c) What is the average number of customers
waiting in line?
(d) What is the average time a customer spends
in the system?
(e) What is the average time a customer spends
waiting in line?
END