The arrangement of servers in an ordered-entry system. (English) Zbl 0635.90036

Yao, David D.

Oper. Res. 35, No. 5, 759-763 (1987).

Summary: We consider a service system whose servers may work at different rates (systems with “heterogeneous servers”). Jobs arriving at the system access the servers in accordance with an “entry order” that relates to the arrangement of the servers. When all servers are occupied, arriving jobs are blocked and lost. This model has applications in the study of conveyors and other circulation systems. In this paper we wish to compare various server arrangements in such systems. We represent the arrangement of severs by a permutation vector of their service rates, and develop a partial order on these vectors. By moving in the direction pointed out by this partial order, one can reduce blocked traffic, thereby improving system performance. Our results may help system designers compare directly the performance of different server arrangements.

MSC:

90B22

Queues and service in operations research

Keywords:

service system; heterogeneous servers; entry order; conveyors; blocked traffic