Incentives for Shared Services: Multiserver Queueing Systems with Priorities

Hanlin Liu () and Yimin Yu ()
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Hanlin Liu: Division of Information Systems and Management Engineering, College of Business, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen 518055, China
Yimin Yu: Department of Management Sciences, College of Business, City University of Hong Kong, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR, China

Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, 2022, vol. 24, issue 3, 1751-1759

Abstract: Problem definition : We study shared service whereby multiple independent service providers collaborate by pooling their resources into a shared service center (SSC). The SSC deploys an optimal priority scheduling policy for their customers collectively by accounting for their individual waiting costs and service-level requirements. We model the SSC as a multiclass M / M / c queueing system subject to service-level constraints. Academic/practical relevance : Shared services are increasingly popular among firms for saving operational costs and improving service quality. One key issue in fostering collaboration is the allocation of costs among different firms. Methodology : To incentivize collaboration, we investigate cost allocation rules for the SSC by applying concepts from cooperative game theory. Results : To empower our analysis, we show that a cooperative game with polymatroid optimization can be analyzed via simple auxiliary games. By exploiting the polymatroidal structures of the multiclass queueing systems, we show when the games possess a core allocation. We explore the extent to which our results remain valid for some general cases. Managerial implications : We provide operational insights and guidelines on how to allocate costs for the SSC under the multiserver queueing context with priorities.

Keywords: resource pooling; shared service; multiclass queueing systems; priority rules; polymatroid; cooperative game theory (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:inm:ormsom:v:24:y:2022:i:3:p:1751-1759

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