A.

STEPS IN QUEUING ANALYSIS

Queuing Process refers to the number

of queues and their respective lengths. The
number of queues single, multiple or priority
queues depends upon the layout of a service
system. The length (size) of the queue
depends upon the operational situation such
as physical space, legal restrictions and
attitude of the customers.

Components of a Basic Queuing Process:

a. The calling population
i. The population from which customers/jobs originate
ii. The size can be finite or infinite (the latter is most common)
iii. Can be homogeneous (only one type of customers/ jobs) or
heterogeneous (several different kinds of customers/jobs)
b. The Arrival Process
i. Determines how, when and where customer/jobs arrive to the system
ii. Important characteristic is the customers’/jobs’ inter-arrival times
iii. To correctly specify the arrival process requires data collection of
interarrival times and statistical analysis.
c. The queue configuration
i. Specifies the number of queues
1. Single or multiple lines to a number of service stations
ii. Their location
iii. Their effect on customer behavior
1. Balking and reneging
iv. Their maximum size (# of jobs the queue can hold)
1. Distinction between infinite and finite capacity

General Steps of Queuing Model Analysis

B. STRUCTURE OF A QUEUING ANALYSIS
Queue Structure is the crucial element of a queuing system, as it shows the
queue discipline, which means the order in which the customers are picked from
the queue for the service. Simply, the way the customer is selected from the
waiting line for service is shown by the queue structure.

a. Source Population / Calling Population

i. It is the source of customers to the queuing system and it can be

either infinite or finite.

ii. The key difference between an “infinite” and “finite” population

model is how the arrival process is defined.

iii. An infinite calling population assumes a large number of

potential customers and there is always room for one more
 potential customer to be served. Usually, the system is viewed as
an “open system”. (Ex. grocery stores, banks and malls). In this
system, arrival rate is not affected by the number of customers in
the system. Most queuing systems assume that the population is
infinite.

iv. A finite calling population has a specific number of potential

customers. Usually the system is viewed as a “closed system”. (Ex.
nurse assigned to attend a specific number of patients or a garage
repair shop that only has a certain number of machines that can be
worked on). In this system, arrival rate depends on the number of
customers being served and waiting.

v. The calling population can also be homogenous (only one type of

customer/job) or heterogeneous (several different kinds of
customers/jobs).

b. Arrival Process / Size of Arrival Units

i. How customers arrive e.g. singly or in groups (batch or bulk
arrivals)
ii. How the arrivals are distributed in time (e.g. what is the probability
distribution of time between successive arrivals (the interarrival
time distribution))
iii. For infinite population
1. inter-arrival time characterized by a random distribution, e.g.
Poisson distribution
2. scheduled arrivals, such as patients to a physician's office;
airline flight arrives at an airport. The interarrival time may be
a constant, or a constant with a small random fluctuation.
3. at least one customer is assumed to always be present in
the queue, so the server is never idle because of the lack of
the customers, e.g. parts in an assembly line.
iv. For finite population:
1. Define a customer is pending when it is outside the queueing
system, and it is a member of the potential calling
population.
E.g. when simulating a local area network, if a particular
 computer is powered off, we say it is pending. As soon as it
is powered on, the customer (computer) will demand service
from the network.
2. Define runtime of a given customer as the length of the time
from departure from the queueing system until the
customer's next arrival to the queue. Runtime essentially is
the time when the customer is being serviced.
v. The arrival rate in a finite population model is a function of the
number of pending customers.

c. Control of Arrivals / Patterns

The Arrival pattern
Arrivals can be measured as Me arrival rate or the
interarrival time (time between arrivals).
Interarrival time = 17 arrival rate
These quantities may be deterministic or stochastic (given by a
probability distribution)
Arrivals may also come in batches of multiple customers, which is
called batch or bulk arrivals The batch size may be either
deterministic or stochastic.
1. Balking: The customer may decide not to enter the queue
upon arrival, perhaps because it is too long.
2. Reneging: The customer may decide to leave the queue
after waiting a certain time in it.
3. Jockeying: If there are multiple queues in parallel the
customers may switch between them.
4. Drop-os: Customers may be dropped from the queue for
reasons outside their control

d. Statistical Distribution of Arrivals

The Poisson process

The Poisson process can be used to model the number of occurrences of

events, such as patient arrivals at the ER, during a certain period of time,
such as 24 hours, assuming that one knows the average occurrence of
those events over some period of time. For example, an average of 10
patients walk into the ER per hour.
The Poisson process has the following properties:

1. It is made up of a sequence of random variables X1, X2, X3, …

Xk such that each variable represents the number of occurrences
of some event, such as patients walking into an ER, during some
interval of time.
2. It is a stochastic process. Each time you run the Poisson
process, it will produce a different sequence of random outcomes
as per some probability distribution which we will soon see.
3. It is a discrete process. The Poisson process’s outcomes are the
number of occurrences of some event in the specified period of
time, which is undoubtedly an integer —i.e. a discrete number.
4. It has independent increments. What this is means is that the
number of events that the process predicts will occur in any given
interval, is independent of the number in any other disjoint interval.
For e.g. the number of people walking into the ER from time zero
(start of the observation) up through 10am, is independent of the
number walking in from 3:33pm to 8:26pm, or from 11:00pm to
11:05pm and so on.
5. The Poisson process’s constituent variables X1, X2, X3,…Xk all
have identical distribution.
6. The Poisson process’s constituent variables X1, X2, X3,…Xk all
have a Poisson distribution, which is given by the Probability
Mass Function:

Probability of k occurrences in unit time, given an average

occurrence rate of λ per unit time

Modeling inter-arrival times

The Poisson process has a remarkable substructure. Even though the

number of occurrence of events is modeled using a discrete Poisson
distribution, the interval of time between consecutive events can be
modeled using the Exponential distribution,which is a continuous
distribution.

Let’s explore this further.

Let X1, X2, X3,…etc. be random variables such that:

X1 = the interval of time between the start of the process and the 1st
event, i.e. 1st arrival,
X2 = the inter-arrival time between the first and the second arrival,
X3 = the inter-arrival time between the second and the third arrival,
and so forth.

The distribution of random variable Xk which represents the inter-arrival

time between the (k-1)th and (k)th arrival is:

The Probability Density Function (PDF) of the random variable Xk is as

follows:

And the Cumulative Distribution Function (CDF) is:

Recollect that CDF of X returns the probability that the interval of time
between consecutive arrivals will be less than or equal to some value t.