Server Assignment Policies for Maximizing the Steady-State Throughput of Finite Queueing Systems

Sigrún Andradóttir (), Hayriye Ayhan () and Douglas G. Down ()
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Sigrún Andradóttir: School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia 30332-0205
Hayriye Ayhan: School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia 30332-0205
Douglas G. Down: Department of Computing and Software, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario L8S 4L7 Canada

Management Science, 2001, vol. 47, issue 10, 1421-1439

Abstract: For a system of finite queues, we study how servers should be assigned dynamically to stations in order to obtain optimal (or near-optimal) long-run average throughput. We assume that travel times between different service facilities are negligible, that each server can work on only one job at a time, and that several servers can work together on one job. We show that when the service rates depend only on either the server or the station (and not both), then all nonidling server assignment policies are optimal. Moreover, for a Markovian system with two stations in tandem and two servers, we show that the optimal policy assigns one server to each station unless that station is blocked or starved (in which case the server helps at the other station), and we specify the criterion used for assigning servers to stations. Finally, we propose a simple server assignment policy for tandem systems in which the number of stations equals the number of servers, and we present numerical results that show that our policy appears to yield near-optimal throughput under general conditions.

Keywords: Markov Decision Processes; Markovian Queueing Systems; Tandem Queues; Finite Buffers; Mobile and Cooperating Servers; Preemptive Service; Manufacturing Blocking (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2001
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (33)

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