When should a roving server be patient?
Article Abstract:
It is argued that it is more useful to model real-world polling systems as 'patient' systems rather than as roving servers. Roving systems continuously switch or 'rove' from one customer station to another even when there are no more customers waiting to be served. In contrast, a patient server stops roving after completing a service when the system is empty. It is further proposed that the patient server model is more realistic and that knowing under which conditions and at which stations servers should be patient can improve the operational management of such polling systems. The patient server model and several of its variants are analyzed. Explicit expressions for the waiting time distributions, the mean waiting times and the pseudo-conservation law are presented.
Publication Name: Management Science
Subject: Business, general
ISSN: 0025-1909
Year: 1996
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How does product proliferation affect responsiveness?
Article Abstract:
The effect of an increase in the variety of products offered by manufacturing firms on organizational responsiveness, measured in terms of average work-in-process inventory and average production lead time, was investigated. Queueing models were developed to examine whether product proliferation always negatively affects responsiveness and increases production costs as well as consider the strategies that can be used by firms to deal with product proliferation. Results showed that an increase in product variety can enhance not only individual product performance but also system performance. These findings contradict a common assumption that an increase in product focus always leads to a corresponding increase in organizational responsiveness.
Publication Name: Management Science
Subject: Business, general
ISSN: 0025-1909
Year: 1998
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When does forced idle time improve performance in polling models?
Article Abstract:
Simple explicit formulas for the expected waiting time in production systems were developed as a function of the mean and variance of the setup times in standard polling models with either comprehensive or gated service discipline. These formulations are aimed at illuminating the hotly debated findings of Sarkar and Zangwill (1991) that reduction in setup or service times can sometimes actually lead to more work in process in cyclic production systems. For exhaustive and gated service disciplines, the simple formulas define for each queue a critical value of the mean total setup time per cycle such that the expected waiting time at the queue will be reduced if the server is forced to be idle for a constant stretch of time.
Publication Name: Management Science
Subject: Business, general
ISSN: 0025-1909
Year: 1998
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