IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/inm/orinte/v11y1981i1p43-49.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Queueing Theory in Practice

Author

Listed:
  • Hamdy A. Taha

    (Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, Arkansas 72701)

Abstract

Queueing theory evolved originally out of an investigation of problems dealing with the design of telephone systems. Now, some 70 years later, we are witnessing a tremendous accumulation of theoretical results for “idealized” systems that apparently have not been as effective in dealing with other types of real-life problems. Queueing theory differs from other mathematical techniques of Operations Research in that it does not deal with optimization models. Rather, it utilizes mathematical analysis to determine the system's measures of effectiveness such as the expected waiting time per customer and the facility's percentage of idle time. These measures are then used as data in the context of an optimization (cost) model for determining the system's capacity. The obstacles in applying queueing theory to practical problems occur both in modeling the system mathematically and in determining its optimum design parameters. This paper identifies the areas of application in terms of their amenability to analysis by queueing theory, and provides suggestions that can enhance the applicability of queueing models in real life.

Suggested Citation

  • Hamdy A. Taha, 1981. "Queueing Theory in Practice," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 11(1), pages 43-49, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:inm:orinte:v:11:y:1981:i:1:p:43-49
    DOI: 10.1287/inte.11.1.43
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/inte.11.1.43
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1287/inte.11.1.43?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Gary M. Thompson, 1997. "Labor staffing and scheduling models for controlling service levels," Naval Research Logistics (NRL), John Wiley & Sons, vol. 44(8), pages 719-740, December.
    2. Castillo, Ignacio & Joro, Tarja & Li, Yong Yue, 2009. "Workforce scheduling with multiple objectives," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 196(1), pages 162-170, July.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    queues: applications;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:inm:orinte:v:11:y:1981:i:1:p:43-49. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Asher (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/inforea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.