Dual-Resource Constrained Series Service Systems

Rosser T. Nelson
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Rosser T. Nelson: University of California, Los Angeles, California

Operations Research, 1968, vol. 16, issue 2, 324-341

Abstract: A Poisson arrival, exponential service queuing system consisting of two service stages in series is the subject of this study. The distinguishing characteristic is that the system has only one laborer. The labor and machine limited system is compared to its ordinary machine limited counterpart by means of a comparison of simulation results and theoretical results. Implications of the experiments are discussed with respect to various facets of system design and control, including labor assignment procedures, size of labor force, and control of arrival and (or) service rates. Average labor utilization is proposed as a measure of system utilization for labor- and machine-limited queuing systems. From this emanates the concept of “blocking” of labor and concomitant problems that complicate any nonexperimental determination of average labor utilization in terms of system parameters. The possibility of equivalence relations between labor and machine-limited queuing models and reduced machine-limited queuing models is also explored. Although the experimental systems yield one example of such a relation, they also provide evidence to support a conjecture that no general equivalence exists.

Date: 1968
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