BU275 Lecture 5: Queuing Analysis
Document Summary
Most businesses have sufficient serving capacity available to handle their customers in the long run. Waiting lines occur b/c customers don"t arrive constantly and evenly, and aren"t served in an equal amount of time. Operating characteristics: average values for characteristics that describe the performance of a waiting system. Components of a waiting line system includes arrivals, servers, and waiting line structure. Most important factors to consider in analyzing a queuing system: The queue discipline (in what order customers are served) The nature of the calling population (where customers come from) The arrival rate (how often customers arrive at the queue) The service rate (how fast customers are served) Queue discipline: order in which waiting customers are served. E. g. last-in first-out, random, predetermined schedule, or alphabetical. Calling population: source of customers; infinite or finite. E. g. store with number of potential customers has infinite calling population, truck with 20 trucks has finite calling population.