Queuing

Session 6 & 7
M/M/1 and M/M/S

Everyday Queues
Fast Food McDonalds, Burger King,
Retail supermarkets, stores, banks
Medical doctors office, access to
diagnostic procedures, specialist
referrals
Airports check-in, baggage collection,
runway delays, waiting to land
Traffic - congestion

Queues in Manufacturing

Order backlogs
Work in process inventories
Distribution inventories
Often queue (inventory) size is
limited
Number of Kanbans limits work in
process
Fixed number of AGVs circulate in a loop

Queuing Theory - Basics

What determines queue lengths and waiting times?

arrivals
(Customers, Jobs)

Queue

SERVE
R

departures

Arrival rate= = 1/mean time between arrivals

Service rate = = 1/mean time to serve one customer

Key Ideas
Queue length, waiting time determined by
(1) Utilization of server = = /
= Job arrival rate mean time to serve each
job

(2) Variability of arrivals (lowest with equally

spaced arrivals)

(3) Variability of service time (lowest is when

all
jobs require exactly the same time)

Sources of Service Time

Variability
Server not consistent (some variability
inherent in all repetitive tasks: depends on
task (cognitive) complexity)
Different people performing same task
have different mean times (best 2worst in
manual assembly tasks, ratio increases
with task complexity)
Mixture of different customer types, each
type takes a different time

Finite Queues
Call centers, hospitals
Number of waiting spaces is finite (and
fixed)
If waiting spaces occupied arrivals are lost

Quality of Service measures:

Fraction of calls accepted
Number of attempts to obtain service
Fraction of customers served within 5
minutes (How does a manager behave to
meet this type of service target?)

Closed Queues
Finite

Finite number of customers circulate in system

Pallets in a manufacturing cell
Kanban cards

Notations
= average number of customers that
arrive per unit of time (also called as arrival
rate of the system)
= average number of customers that
can be serviced by a single channel per
unit of time ( also called as service rate of
a channel)
M = number of serving channels

average utilization of the facility

M

Behaviour of simple
systems
M, and are the three inputs that are
required to predict the behaviour of the
queues in the system
For the system with M channels, M is the
service rate of the system
In a queuing system, the average number
of customers that can served per hour
must be greater than the average number
that arrive per hour (that is, it must be that
M >

Example
Suppose that a hamburger stand has one
server who can serve 70 customers per
hour on average. (the service rate is
70/60 =0.86 minutes per customer)
Customer arrive at an average rate of 49
per hour in the busy period
The given data are:
M=1
= average arrival rate = 49
= average service rate = 70

Example
The average number of people on
the queue
/ = 49/70 = 0.7
No. of servers = 1
Using Exhibit 3,
We can estimate that average queue
length(Lq) is 1.6333persons

Measures of system
performance
A) Wq = average (expected waiting
time)= Lq/
B) L = average number of people in
the system (waiting or being served)
= Lq + /
C) W = average time in system
(waiting or being served) = Wq + 1/

= Lq/ + 1/

Performance measures
Expected waiting time is 1.6333/49 =
0.033 hours or 2 minutes
Average number of people in the
system = 1.633 +0.70 = 2.333
people
The average time in the system =
0.033 + 1/70 hours = 2.86 minutes
(2 minutes of waiting time and 0.86
minutes of serving time)

Summary of results

(per
hou
r)

(per
hour
)

49

70

Lq
(peopl
e)

Wq
(minut
es)

L
(peop
le)

W
(minute
s)

0.7 0.70 1.633

2
2.333 2.86
0
What if the number of servers is raised to 2, but still have a single
queue?
By using the Exhibit 3 we obtain the value of L q as 0.0976

(per
hou
r)

(per
hour
)

Lq
(peopl
e)

Wq
(minut
es)

L
(peop
le)

W
(minute
s)

49

70

0.7
0

0.70

1.633

2.333

2.86

49

70

0.7

0.35

0.098

0.12

0.80

0.98

Inferences
Average queue length has reduced
by 94.5%
But the average time spent in the
system (W) has been reduced by
only 66%
Serving time still remain at 0.86,
though the expected waiting time
has dropped to 0.12 minutes

What-if analysis
What if the average service time is
reduced to half rather increasing the
channels?
Means, M=1, but we have a new
value of
By cutting the average service time
in half, we double the number of
customers served per hour. Therefore
is 140 and / = =0.35

What-if analysis
For M=1 and =0.35, average queue length is 0.1884
people, and other values are

(per
hou
r)

(per
hour
)

Lq
(peopl
e)

Wq
(minut
es)

L
(peop
le)

W
(minute
s)

49

70

0.7
0

0.70

1.633

2.333

2.86

49

70

0.7
0

0.35

0.098

0.12

0.80

0.98

The second channel reduces average queue length (Lq)

49
140
1
0.3 0.35 0.188
0.23
0.54
0.66
more,
5
Reduction in service time reduces the total time in the
system

 What if another hamburger stand is

opened some blocks away and half
the customers turn to the new stand?

Specification of Queueing
Systems
Customer arrival and service stochastic models
Structural Parameters
Number of servers
Storage capacity

Operating policies
Customer class differentiation (are all customers
treated the same or do some have priority over
others?)
Scheduling/Queueing policies (which customer is
served next)
Admission policies (which/when customers are
admitted)

Queueing System Notation

Arrival
Process
M: Markovian
D:
Deterministic
Er: Erlang
G: General

A/B/m/K/N

Number of
servers m=1,2,
Storage Capacity
K= 1,2,
(if then it is
omitted)

Service
Process
M: Markovian
D:
Deterministic
Er: Erlang
G: General

Number of
customers N= 1,2,
(for closed networks
otherwise it is
omitted)

Single channel waiting line

Distribution of arrival
Poisson Distribution
Provides the probability function of x arrivals in
a specific time period.
Probability function is
x e
P( x)
for x 0,1,2...
x!
Where x = number of arrivals in the time period
= the mean number of arrivals per time
period

Example problem
Suppose that Burger Dome analysed
data on customer and concluded that
the arrival rate is 45 customers per
hour.
What is ?
What is the probability of 0,1, and 2
customer arrivals during a one minute
period?

Distribution of service time

Exponential probability distribution
P(service time t) = 1-e-t
The mean number of units that can be served
per time period,, is called the service rate
Suppose that Burger dome estimated that it
can process 60 customer orders per hour.
What is the probability that an order can be
processed in
minute or less
1 minute or less
2 minute or less

Performance Measures of
Interest
We are interested in steady state behavior
Even though it is possible to pursue transient results, it
is a significantly more difficult task.

E[S] average system time (average time spent in

the system)
E[W] average waiting time (average time spent
waiting in queue(s))
E[X] average queue length
E[U] average utilization (fraction of time that the
resources are being used)
E[R] average throughput (rate that customers
leave the system)
E[L] average customer loss (rate that customers
are lost or probability that a customer is lost)

M/M/1 Performance Measures

= the mean number of arrivals per
time period (the arrival rate)
= the mean number of services per
time period (the service rate)

M/M/1 Performance Measures

The probability that no units are in the

system
P0 1

The average number

2 of units in the
waiting line Lq ( )

The average number

q
of units in the system

M/M/1 Performance Measures

The average time a unit spends in the waiting
Lq
line

Wq

The average time a unit spends

in the system
1

W Wq

The probability that

an arriving unit has to wait
for service Pw

The probability of n units in the system

P n P0