III Semester Production Engineering

MODULE Lecture Notes on

VI Operations Research

Queuing Theory
Dr. Joyjeet Ghose
Associate Professor,
Department of Production Engineering,
Birla Institute of Technology, Mesra
Joyjeet Ghose. 2014
Introduction to Queuing Theory
• A flow of customers from infinite or finite population towards the service facility
forms a queue or waiting line on account of lack of capability to serve them all
at a time.
• By the term customer we mean to the arriving unit that requires some service to
be performed at the service station.
• Queues or waiting lines stands for a number of customers waiting to be serviced.
• Queue does not include the customer being serviced. The process or system that
performs the services to the customer is termed as service channel or service
facility.
Departure of
Customer
served customers
arrivals

Departure of impatient
customers

Lecture notes on PE 5001 Manufacturing Process II, Joyjeet Ghose

A Queuing System

Average Wait
in Queue (Wq )
Service

Arrival Departure
( (
Average Number
Rate Service Rate
in Queue (Lq )

Avg Time in System (W )

Avg Number in System (L )

Lecture notes on PE 5001 Manufacturing Process II, Joyjeet Ghose

Queuing Theory History
• A.K.Erlang, a Danish telephone engineer, did original work on queuing theory.
• Erlang started his work in 1905 in an attempt to determine the effects of
fluctuating service demand (arrivals) on the utilization of automatic dialing
equipment.
• The first problems addressed concerned congestion of telephone traffic (Erlang,
"the theory of probabilities and telephone conversations ", 1909)
• Erlang observed that a telephone system can be modeled by Poisson customer
arrivals and exponentially distributed service times

A.K. Erlang

Lecture notes on PE 5001 Manufacturing Process II, Joyjeet Ghose

What is Queuing Theory?
• Mathematical analysis of queues and waiting times in stochastic
systems.
– Used extensively to analyze production and service processes exhibiting
random variability in market demand (arrival times) and service times.
• Queues arise when the short term demand for service exceeds the
capacity
– Most often caused by random variation in service times and the times
between customer arrivals.
– If long term demand for service > capacity the queue will explode!

Lecture notes on PE 5001 Manufacturing Process II, Joyjeet Ghose

Why is Queuing Analysis Important?
• Capacity problems are very common in industry and one of the
main drivers of process redesign
– Need to balance the cost of increased capacity against the gains of increased
productivity and service
• Queuing and waiting time analysis is particularly important in
service systems
– Large costs of waiting and of lost sales due to waiting

Prototype Example – ER at County Hospital

• Patients arrive by ambulance or by their own accord
• One doctor is always on duty
• More and more patients seeks help  longer waiting times
 Question: Should another MD position be instated?

Lecture notes on PE 5001 Manufacturing Process II, Joyjeet Ghose

Why is Queuing Analysis Important?
• In many cases, the use of a queuing model provides a quantitative way to assess
system performance
– Throughput (e.g., job completions per second)
– Response time (e.g., Web page download time)
– Expected waiting time for service
– Number of buffers required to control loss
• Reveals key system insights (properties)
• Often with efficient, closed-form calculation

Lecture notes on PE 5001 Manufacturing Process II, Joyjeet Ghose

Waiting line model for some commonly situations

Lecture notes on PE 5001 Manufacturing Process II, Joyjeet Ghose

A Cost/Capacity Tradeoff Model
• Given a specified shortage or waiting cost function the analysis is straightforward
• Define
– WC = Expected Waiting Cost (shortage cost) per time unit
– SC = Expected Service Cost (capacity cost) per time unit
– TC = Expected Total system cost per time unit
• The objective is to minimize the total expected system cost

Total
cost
Cost

Cost of
service
Min TC = WC + SC

Cost of waiting

Process capacity
Lecture notes on PE 5001 Manufacturing Process II, Joyjeet Ghose
Examples of Real World Queuing Systems?
• Commercial Queuing Systems
– Commercial organizations serving external customers
– Ex. Dentist, bank, ATM, gas stations, plumber, garage …
• Transportation service systems
– Vehicles are customers or servers
– Ex. Vehicles waiting at toll stations and traffic lights, trucks or ships waiting
to be loaded, taxi cabs, fire engines, elevators, buses …
• Business-internal service systems
– Customers receiving service are internal to the organization providing the
service
– Ex. Inspection stations, conveyor belts, computer support …
• Social service systems
– Ex. Judicial process, the ER at a hospital, waiting lists for organ transplants
or student dorm rooms …

Lecture notes on PE 5001 Manufacturing Process II, Joyjeet Ghose

Components of a Basic Queuing Process
Input Source The Queuing System

Served
Calling Jobs Service Jobs
Queue Mechanism
Population
leave the
system

Arrival Queue
Process Discipline
Service
Queue
Process
Configuration

Lecture notes on PE 5001 Manufacturing Process II, Joyjeet Ghose

Components of a Basic Queuing Process
The Queuing System
•Average time in the system, Ws
•Average No. in the system Ls
Served
Calling Service
Jobs Jobs
Population Mechanism
(Finite/Infinite)
leave the
Queue system
• Queue capacity
Service Process
Arrival Process •Finite/Infinite
•Service Channels (Single/
•Queue Configuration
•Arrival distribution Multiple)
•Single/Multiple
• Service rate ()
•Arrival rate () •Queue Discipline
•FIFO
Customer Behavior •LIFO
•Balking •SIRO
•Reneging •PRIORITY
•Collusion • Avereage No. in
•Jockeying Queue (Lq)
• Average Wait time in
queue (Wq)
Lecture notes on PE 5001 Manufacturing Process II, Joyjeet Ghose
Components of a Basic Queuing Process (II)
 The calling population
– The population from which customers/jobs originate
– The size can be finite or infinite (the latter is most
common)
– Can be homogeneous (only one type of customers/ jobs) or
heterogeneous (several different kinds of customers/jobs)
 The Arrival Process
– Determines how, when and where customer/jobs arrive to
the system
– Important characteristic is the customers’/jobs’ inter-
arrival times
– To correctly specify the arrival process requires data
collection of interarrival times and statistical analysis.

Lecture notes on PE 5001 Manufacturing Process II, Joyjeet Ghose

Components of a Basic Queuing Process (III)
 The queue configuration
– Specifies the number of queues
• Single or multiple lines to a number of service stations
– Their location
– Their effect on customer behavior
• Balking and reneging
– Their maximum size (# of jobs the queue can hold)
• Distinction between infinite and finite capacity

Lecture notes on PE 5001 Manufacturing Process II, Joyjeet Ghose

Characteristics of Arrivals or input.

Lecture notes on PE 5001 Manufacturing Process II, Joyjeet Ghose

Characteristics of Arrivals or input.
• Capacity of the service system: In queuing context the capacity refers to the space
available for the arrivals to wait before taken to service. The space available may
be limited or unlimited. When the space is limited, length of waiting line crosses
a certain limit; no further units or arrivals are permitted to enter the system till
some waiting space becomes vacant. This type of system is known as system with
finite capacity and it has its effect on the arrival pattern of the system, for
example a doctor giving tokens for some customers to arrive at certain time and
the present system of allowing the devotees for darshan at Tirupathi by using the
token belt system.

Lecture notes on PE 5001 Manufacturing Process II, Joyjeet Ghose

Characteristics of Arrivals or input.
• Customer behaviour: The length of the queue or the waiting time of a customer
or the idle time of the service facility mostly depends on the behaviour of the
customer. Here the behaviour refers to the impatience of a customer during the
stay in the line. Customer behaviour can be classified as:
• (i) Ballking: This behaviour signifies that the customer does not like to join the
queue seeing the long length of it. This behaviour may effect in loosing a
customer by the organization. Always a lengthy queue indicates insufficient
service facility and customer may not turn out next time. For example, a customer
who wants to go by train to his destination goes to railway station and after
seeing the long queue in front of the ticket counter, may not like to join the queue
and seek other type of transport to reach his destination.
• (ii) Reneging: In this case the customer joins the queue and after waiting for
certain time looses his patience and leaves the queue. This behaviour of the
customer may also cause loss of customer to the organization

Lecture notes on PE 5001 Manufacturing Process II, Joyjeet Ghose

Characteristics of Arrivals or input.
• (iii) Collusion: In this case several customers may collaborate and only one of
them may stand in the queue. One customer represents a group of customer. Here
the queue length may be small but service time for an individual will be more.
This may break the patience of the other customers in the waiting line and
situation may lead to any type of worst episode.
• (iv) Jockeying : If there are number of waiting lines depending on the number of
service stations, for example Petrol bunks, Cinema theaters, etc. A customer in
one of the queue after seeing the other queue length, which is shorter, with a hope
of getting the service, may leave the present queue and join the shorter queue.
Perhaps the situation may be that other queue which is shorter may be having
more number of Collaborated customers. In such case the probability of getting
service to the customer who has changed the queue may be very less. Because of
this character of the customer, the queue lengths may goes on changing from time
to time.

Lecture notes on PE 5001 Manufacturing Process II, Joyjeet Ghose

Service Mechanisms

Lecture notes on PE 5001 Manufacturing Process II, Joyjeet Ghose

Service facility design
• Service facility design: Arriving customers maybe asked to form a single line
(Single queue) or multi line (multi queue) depending on the service need. When
they stand in single line it is known as Single channel facility when they stand in
multi lines it is known as multi channel facility.
• If the organization has provided single facility to serve the customers, only one
unit can be served at a time, hence arriving customers form a queue near the
facility. The next element is drawn into service only when the service of the
previous customer is over. Here also depending on the type of service the system
is divided into Single phase and Multi phase service facility.
• When the input rates increases, and the demand for the service increases, the
management will provide additional service facilities to reduce the rush of
customers or waiting time of customers. In such cases, different queues will be
formed in front of different service facilities. If the service is provided to
customers at one particular service center, then it is known as Multi channel
Single-phase system. In case service is provided to customer in different stages or
phases, which are in parallel, then it is known as multi channel multi phase
queuing system.

Lecture notes on PE 5001 Manufacturing Process II, Joyjeet Ghose

Characteristics of Arrivals or input.
• Size of arrivals: The size of arrivals to the service system is greatly depends on the nature
of size of the population, which may be infinite or finite. The arrival pattern can be more
clearly described in terms of probabilities and consequently the probability distribution for
inter- arrival times i.e. the time between two successive arrivals or the distribution of
number of customers arriving in unit time must be defined. In our discussion in this
chapter, it is dealt with those queuing system in which the customers arrive in Poisson or
Completely random fashion. In fact there are many more arrival patterns are available
but for simplicity, only Poisson arrivals are considered.
• (b) Inter-arrival time: The period between the arrival of individual customers may be
constant or may be scattered in some distribution fashion. Most queuing models assume
that the some inter-arrival time distraction applies for all customers throughout the period
of study. It is true that in most situations that service time is a random variable with the
same distribution for all arrivals, but cases occur where there are clearly two or more
classes of customers such as a machine waiting for repair with a different service time
distribution. Service time may be constant or random variable. In this chapter mostly
distribution of service time, which are important, are considered and they are Negative
exponential distribution and Erlang or Gamma distribution. The most convenient way is
to designate some random variables corresponding to the time between arrivals. In
general the arrivals follow Poisson distribution when the total number of arrivals during
any given time interval of the number of arrivals that have already occurred prior to the
beginning of time interval.

Lecture notes on PE 5001 Manufacturing Process II, Joyjeet Ghose

Example – Two Queue Configurations

Multiple Queues Single Queue

Servers Servers

Lecture notes on PE 5001 Manufacturing Process II, Joyjeet Ghose

Multiple v.s. Single Customer Queue Configuration

Multiple Line Advantages Single Line Advantages

1. The service provided can 1. Guarantees fairness

be differentiated – FIFO applied to all arrivals
– Ex. Supermarket express lanes 2. No customer anxiety
2. Labor specialization possible regarding choice of queue
3. Customer has more flexibility 3. Avoids “cutting in” problems
4. Balking behavior may be 4. The most efficient set up for
deterred minimizing time in the queue
– Several medium-length lines are 5. Jockeying (line switching) is
less intimidating than one very avoided
long line

Lecture notes on PE 5001 Manufacturing Process II, Joyjeet Ghose

Four basic structures of waiting line situations

Lecture notes on PE 5001 Manufacturing Process II, Joyjeet Ghose

Complex queue for a maintenance shop.

Lecture notes on PE 5001 Manufacturing Process II, Joyjeet Ghose

Service facility design
 The Service Mechanism
– Can involve one or several service facilities with one or several parallel
service channels (servers) - Specification is required
– The service provided by a server is characterized by its service time
• Specification is required and typically involves data gathering and
statistical analysis.
• Most analytical queuing models are based on the assumption of
exponentially distributed service times, with some generalizations.
 The queue discipline
– Specifies the order by which jobs in the queue are being served.
– Most commonly used principle is FIFO.
– Other rules are, for example, LIFO, SPT, EDD…
– Can entail prioritization based on customer type.

26
Lecture notes on PE 5001 Manufacturing Process II, Joyjeet Ghose
Queue discipline or Service discipline
• First In First Out (FIFO) or First Come First Served (FCFS): We are quite
aware that when we are in a queue, we wish that the element which comes should
be served first, so that every element has a fair chance of getting service.
Moreover it is understood that it gives a good morale and discipline in the queue.
When the condition of FIFO is violated, there arises the trouble and the
management is answerable for the situation.
• (ii) Last in first out (LIFO) or Last Come First Served (LCFS): In this system, the
element arrived last will have a chance of getting service first. In general, this
does not happen in a system where human beings are involved. But this is quite
common in Inventory system. Let us assume a bin containing some inventory.
The present stock is being consumed and suppose the material ordered will arrive
that is loaded into the bin. Now the old material is at the bottom of the stock
where as fresh arrived material at the top. While consuming the top material
(which is arrived late) is being consumed. This is what we call Last come first
served). This can also be written as First In Last Out (FILO).

Lecture notes on PE 5001 Manufacturing Process II, Joyjeet Ghose

Queue discipline or Service discipline
• Service In Random Order (SIRO): In this case the items are called for service in a
random order. The element might have come first or last does not bother; the
servicing facility calls the element in random order without considering the order
of arrival. This may happen in some religious organizations but generally it does
not followed in an industrial / business system. In religious organizations, when
devotees are waiting for the darshan of the god man / god woman, the devotees are
picked up in random order for blessings. Some times we see that in government
offices, the representations or applications for various favors are picked up
randomly for processing. It is also seen to allocate an item whose demand is high
and supply is low, also seen in the allocation of shares to the applicants to the
company.
• Service By Priority: Priority disciplines are those where any arrival is chosen for
service ahead of some other customers already in queue. In the case of Pre-emptive
priority the preference to any arriving unit is so high that the unit is already in
service is removed / displaced to take it into service. A non- pre-emptive rule of
priority is one where an arrival with low priority is given preference for service
than a high priority item. As an example, we can quote that in a doctors shop, when
the doctor is treating a patient with stomach pain, suddenly a patient with heart
stroke enters the doctors shop, the doctor asks the patient with stomach pain to wait
for some time and give attention to heart patient. This is the rule of priority.
Lecture notes on PE 5001 Manufacturing Process II, Joyjeet Ghose
Mitigating Effects of Long Queues
1. Concealing the queue from arriving customers
– Ex. Restaurants divert people to the bar or use pagers, amusement parks
require people to buy tickets outside the park, banks broadcast news on TV at
various stations along the queue, casinos snake night club queues through slot
machine areas.
2. Use the customer as a resource
– Ex. Patient filling out medical history form while waiting for physician
3. Making the customer’s wait comfortable and distracting their
attention
– Ex. Complementary drinks at restaurants, computer games, internet stations,
food courts, shops, etc. at airports
4. Explain reason for the wait
5. Provide pessimistic estimates of the remaining wait time
– Wait seems shorter if a time estimate is given.
6. Be fair and open about the queuing disciplines used

Lecture notes on PE 5001 Manufacturing Process II, Joyjeet Ghose

A Commonly Seen Queuing Model (I)

The Queuing System

The Service Facility

C S = Server
C S
The Queue
•
Customers (C)
CCC…C •
•
C S
Customer =C

Lecture notes on PE 5001 Manufacturing Process II, Joyjeet Ghose

A Commonly Seen Queuing Model (II)
• Service times as well as interarrival times are assumed
independent and identically distributed
– If not otherwise specified
• Commonly used notation principle: A/B/C
– A = The interarrival time distribution
– B = The service time distribution
– C = The number of parallel servers
• Commonly used distributions
– M = Markovian (exponential) - Memoryless
– D = Deterministic distribution
– G = General distribution
• Example: M/M/c
– Queuing system with exponentially distributed service and inter-arrival
times and c servers

Lecture notes on PE 5001 Manufacturing Process II, Joyjeet Ghose

States In a Queue System
• Transient State: Queuing theory analysis involves the study of a
system.s behaviour over time. A system is said to be in .transient
state. when its operating characteristics or behaviour are dependent
on time. This happens usually at initial stages of operation of the
system, where its behaviour is still dependent on the initial
conditions. So when the probability distribution of arrivals, waiting
time and servicing time are dependent on time the system is said to
be in transient state.
• Explosive State: In a situation, where arrival rate of the system is
larger than its service rate, a steady state cannot be reached
regardless of the length of the elapsed time. Here queue length will
increase with time and theoretically it could build up to infinity.
Such case is called the explosive state.

Lecture notes on PE 5001 Manufacturing Process II, Joyjeet Ghose

Queuing Theory Focus on Steady State
• Illustration of transient and steady-state conditions
– N(t) = number of customers in the system at time t,
– E[N(t)] = represents the expected number of customers in the system.

30
Transient condition Steady State condition
25
Number of jobs in the system, N(t)

20

15 E[N(t)]
N(t)

10

0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50

time, t

Lecture notes on PE 5001 Manufacturing Process II, Joyjeet Ghose

Distribution of arrival and service time
• Distribution of Arrivals
• The common basic waiting line models have been developed on the assumption
that arrival rate follows the Poisson distribution and that service times follow
the negative exponential distribution.
• This situation is commonly referred to as the Poisson arrival and Exponential
holding time case. These assumptions are often quite valid in operating situations.
Unless it is mentioned that arrival and service follow different distribution, it is
understood always that arrival follows Poisson distribution and service time
follows negative exponential distribution.
• Let us try to understand the probability distribution for time between successive
arrivals, which is known as exponential distribution as described above. The
distribution of arrivals in a queuing system can be considered as a pure birth
process. The term birth refers to the arrival of new calling units in the system the
objective is to study the number of customers that enter the system, i.e. only
arrivals are counted and no departures takes place. Such process is known as pure
birth process. An example may be taken that the service station operator waits
until a minimum-desired customers arrives before he starts the service.

Lecture notes on PE 5001 Manufacturing Process II, Joyjeet Ghose

Poisson process & exponential distribution
• Inter-arrival time t (time between arrivals) in a Poisson process follows
exponential distribution with parameter (mean)

fT(t)


 t
P (t )  e
1
E (t )  1 t
 E (T ) 

n
(  t)   t
Pn (t )  e (1)
n!
Lecture notes on PE 5001 Manufacturing Process II, Joyjeet Ghose
Distribution of arrival and service time
• Exponential Service Times: The commonly used symbol for average service
rate in waiting line models is the Greek letter ‘mu’ .μ., the number of services
completed per time unit. As with arrivals it can be shown that when service rates
follow a Poison process with mean service rate μ, the distribution of serviced
times follow the negative exponential distribution with mean service time 1 / μ.
The reason for the common reference to rates in the discussion of arrivals and to
times in the discussion of service is simply a matter of practice. One should hold
it clearly in mind, however, for both arrivals and services, that in the general
Poison models, rates follow the Poisson distribution and times follow the
negative exponential distribution. One must raise a doubt at this point why the
interest in establishing the validity of the Poisson and Negative exponential
distributions. The answer is that where the assumptions hold, the resulting
waiting line formulas are quite simple. The Poison and Negative exponential
distributions are single parameters distributions; that is, they are completely
described by one parameter, the mean. For the Poisson distribution the standard
deviation is the square root of the mean, and for the negative exponential
distribution the standard deviation is equal to the mean. The result is that the
mathematical derivations and resulting formulas are not complex. Where the
assumptions do not hold, the mathematical development may be rather complex
or we may resort to other techniques for solution, such as simulation.
Lecture notes on PE 5001 Manufacturing Process II, Joyjeet Ghose
Kendall Notation for Queuing Models

Arrival Process Service Process

•M: Markovian •M: Markovian
•D: Deterministic •D: Deterministic
•Er: Erlang •Er: Erlang
•G: General A/B/m/K/N •G: General

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

Lecture notes on PE 5001 Manufacturing Process II, Joyjeet Ghose

Queue Models
• Most elementary queuing models assume that the inputs / arrivals and outputs /
departures follow a birth and death process. Any queuing model is characterized
by situations where both arrivals and departures take place simultaneously.
Depending upon the nature of inputs and service faculties, there can be a number
of queuing models as shown below:
• (i) Probabilistic queuing model: Both arrival and service rates are some
unknown random variables.
• (ii) Deterministic queuing model: Both arrival and service rates are known and
fixed.
• (iii) Mixed queuing model: Either of the arrival and service rates is unknown
random variable and other known and fixed.
• Kendall Notation for Queuing Models: Arrival pattern / Service pattern /
Number of channels / (Capacity / Order of servicing). (A /B/ S / (d / f).
• In general M is used to denote Poisson distribution (Markovian) of arrivals and
departures.
• D is used to constant or Deterministic distribution.
• Ek is used to represent Erlangian probability distribution.
• G is used to show some general probability distribution.
Lecture notes on PE 5001 Manufacturing Process II, Joyjeet Ghose
M / M / 1 / (∞ / FIFO):Formulae used
• Average number of arrivals per unit of time = λ
• Average number of units served per unit of time = μ

• Traffic intensity or utility ratio =  
 the condition is : (μ > λ)
• Probability that the system is empty = P0 = (1 - ρ )
• Probability that there are ‘n’ units in the system = Pn = ρn P0
• Average number of units in the system = E(n)      Lq  
1    
2 2
• Average number of units in the waiting line = EL  1        

• Average waiting length (mean time in the system) = E (L / L > 0)

1 1
 
1    
1 L
 E ( w)  
 
• Average length of waiting line with the condition that it is always greater than
zero
  Lq 
 V ( n)    
1             
2 2

Lecture notes on PE 5001 Manufacturing Process II, Joyjeet Ghose

M / M / 1 / (∞ / FIFO):Formulae used
1 1
• Average time an arrival spends in the system = E (v)    E w / w  0
 1      

• P (w > 0) = System is busy = ρ

• Idle time = (1− ρ)
• Probability distibution of waiting time = P (w) dw =μρ(1− ρ)e−μw(1−ρ)
• Probability that a consumer has to wait on arrival = (P (w > 0) = ρ
• Probability that a new arrival stays in the system = P(v)dv = μ(1− ρ) e−μv(1−ρ)dv

Lecture notes on PE 5001 Manufacturing Process II, Joyjeet Ghose

M / M / 1 / (∞ / FIFO):Formulae used

Averagenumber in system, L 
 -
1
Average time in system, W 
 -
2
Average number in queue, L q 
  -  

Average time waiting, Wq 
  -  

Utilizatio n Factor,  


PercentIdle, P0  1 

k 1
Probability the number of P    
customers is > k, nk 
 
Lecture notes on PE 5001 Manufacturing Process II, Joyjeet Ghose
M / M / 1 / (∞ / FIFO): Examples
• Example 1 : A T.V. Repairman finds that the time spent on his jobs have an
exponential distribution with mean of 30 minutes. If he repairs sets in the order in
which they come in, and if the arrival of sets is approximately Poisson with an
average rate of 10 per 8 hour day, what is repairman’s expected idle time each
day? How many jobs are ahead of the average set just brought in?
• Solution:
• This problem is Poisson arrival/Negative exponential service / single channel
/infinite capacity/ FIFO type problem.
• Data: λ = 10 sets per 8 hour day = 10 / 8 = 5/4 sets per hour.
• Given 1/μ = 30 minutes, hence μ = (1/30) × 60 = 2 sets per hour.
• Hence, Utility ratio = ρ = (λ /μ) = (5/4) / 2 = = 5 / 8. = 0.625. This means out of 8
hours 5 hours the system is busy i.e. repairman is busy.
• Probability that there is no queue = The system is idle = (1− ρ) = 1 -(5 / 8) = 3 / 8
= That is out of 8 hours the repairman will be idle for 3 hours.
• Number of sets ahead of the set just entered = Average number of sets in system
= λ / (μ − λ) = ρ / (1− ρ) = 0.625 / (1 . 0.625) = 5 / 3 ahead of jobs just came in.

Lecture notes on PE 5001 Manufacturing Process II, Joyjeet Ghose

M / M / 1 / (∞ / FIFO): Examples
• Example 2: The arrivals at a telephone booth are considered to be following
Poisson law of distribution with an average time of 10 minutes between one
arrival and the next. Length of the phone call is assumed to be distributed
exponentially with a mean of 3 minutes.
• (a) What is the probability that a person arriving at the booth will have to wait?
• (b) What is the average length of queue that forms from time to time?
• (c) The telephone department will install a second booth when convinced that an
arrival would expect to wait at least thee minutes for the phone. By how much
must the flow of arrivals be increased in order to justify a second booth?\
• Solution: Data: Time interval between two arrivals = 10 min. = 1/ λ, Length of
phone call = 3 min. = 1/μ. Hence λ = 1/10 = 0.1. per min and μ = 1/3 = 0.33 per
min., and ρ = λ /μ = 0.10 / 0.33 = 0.3
• (a) Any person who is coming to booth has to wait when there is somebody in the
queue. He need not wait when there is nobody in the queue i.e. the queue is
empty. Hence the probability of that an arrival does not wait = P0 = (1− ρ).
• Hence the probability that an arrival has to wait = 1. The probability that an
arrival does not wait = (1 - P0) = 1 - (1− ρ) = ρ = 0.3. That means 30% of the time
the fresh arrival has to wait. That means that 70 % of the time the system is idle.
Lecture notes on PE 5001 Manufacturing Process II, Joyjeet Ghose
M / M / 1 / (∞ / FIFO): Examples
• (b) Average length of non- empty queue from time to time = (Average length of
the waiting line with the condition that it is always greater than zero = 1 /(1− ρ)
i.e. E (L/L > 0) = 1 / (1 -0.3) = 1.43 persons.
• (c) The installation of the second booth is justified if the waiting time is greater
than or equal to three. If the new arrival rate is λ’, then for μ = 0.33 we can work
out the length of the waiting line. In this case ρ = λ’ /μ.
• Length of the waiting line for λ’ and μ = 0.33 = E (w) = {λ’ /μ(μ − λ’)} ≥ 3 or
• λ’ =(3μ2 − 3ρμλ’) or λ’ = (3μ2 ) /(1+ 3μ) = (3 × 0.332) / (1 + 3 × 0.33) i.e. λ’ ≥
0.16. That is the arrival rate must be at least 0.16 persons per minute or one
arrival in every 6 minutes. This can be written as 10 arrivals per hour to justify
the second booth.

Lecture notes on PE 5001 Manufacturing Process II, Joyjeet Ghose

M / M / 1 / (∞ / FIFO): Examples
• Example 3: In a departmental store one cashier is there to serve the customers.
And the customers pick up their needs by themselves. The arrival rate is 9
customers for every 5 minutes and the cashier can serve 10 customers in 5
minutes. Assuming Poisson arrival rate and exponential distribution for service
rate, find:
• (a) Average number of customers in the system.
• (b) Average number of customers in the queue or average queue length.
• (c) Average time a customer spends in the system.
• (d) Average time a customer waits before being served.
• Solution: Data: Arrival rate is λ = (9 / 5) = 1.8 customers per minute. Service rate
= μ = (10 / 5) = 2 customers per minute. Hence ρ = (λ /μ) = (1.8 / 2 ) = 0.9
• (a) Average number of customers in the system = E (n) = ρ / (1− ρ) = 0.9 / (1 -
0.9) = 0.9 / 0.1 = 9 customers.
• (b) Average time a customer spends in the system = E (v) = 1/μ(1− ρ) =1/(μ − λ)
= 1 / (2 -1.8) = 5 minutes.
• (c) Average number of customers in the queue = E (L) = ρ2 /(1− ρ) = λ2 /μ(μ − λ)
= (ρ)× λ /(μ − λ) = 0.9 × 1.8 / (2 -1.8) = 8.1 customers.
• (d) Average time a customer spends in the queue = ρ /μ(1− ρ) = λ /μ(μ − λ)
Lecture
= 0.9 notes
/ 2on( PE
1 -5001
0.9)Manufacturing
= 0.9 / 0.2Process
=4.5II,minutes.
Joyjeet Ghose
M / M / 1 / (∞ / FIFO): Examples
• Example 4: A branch of a Nationalized bank has only one typist. Since typing
work varies in length (number of pages to be typed), the typing rate is randomly
distributed approximating a Poisson distribution with a mean service rate of 8
letters per hour. The letter arrives at a rate of 5 per hour during the entire 8- hour
workday. If the typist is valued at Rs. 1.50 per hour, determine:
• (a) Equipment utilization, (b) The percent time an arriving letter has to wait, (c)
Average system time, and d) Average idle time cost of the typewriter per day.
• Solution: Data = arrival rate = λ = 5, Service rate μ = 8 per hour.
• Hence ρ = (λ /μ) = 5 / 8 = 0.625
• (a) Equipment utilization = Utility ratio = ρ = 0.625, i.e. 62.5 percent of 8 hour
day the equipment is engaged.
• (b) Percent time that an arriving letter has to wait = As the machine is busy for
62.5 % of the day, the arriving letter has to wait for 62.5 % of the time.
• (c) Average system time = Expected (average) a customer spends in the system =
1/(μ − λ) =[1 / (8 . 5)] = 1/3 hour. = 20 minutes.
• d) Average idle time cost of the typewriter per day = 8 hours × idle time × idle
time cost == 8 × (1 . 5 / 8) × Rs. 1.50 = Rs. 4.50.

Lecture notes on PE 5001 Manufacturing Process II, Joyjeet Ghose

M / M / 1 / (∞ / FIFO): Examples
• Example 5: A product manufacturing plant at a city distributes its products by
trucks, loaded at the factory warehouse. It has its own fleet of trucks plus trucks
of a private transport company. This transport company has complained that
sometimes its trucks have to wait in line and thus the company loses money paid
for a truck and driver of waiting truck. The company has asked the plant manager
either to go in for a second warehouse or discount prices equivalent to the waiting
time. The data available is:
• Average arrival rate of all trucks = 3 per hour.
• Average service rate is = 4 per hour.
• The transport company has provided 40% of the total number of trucks.
Assuming that these rates are random according to Poisson distribution,
determine:
– (a) The probability that a truck has to wait?
– (b) The waiting time of a truck that has to wait,
– (c) The expected waiting time of company trucks per day.

Lecture notes on PE 5001 Manufacturing Process II, Joyjeet Ghose

M / M / 1 / (∞ / FIFO): Examples
• Solution
• Data: λ = 3 trucks per hour, μ = 4 trucks per hour. Hence ρ = utilization factor =
(λ /μ) = 3 /4 = 0.75. This means that the system is utilized 75% of the time.
Hence 75% the time the truck has to wait.
• The waiting time of truck that waits = E (v) = 1/(μ − λ) = 1 / (4 . 3) = 1 hour.
• Total expected waiting time of company trucks per day = (Trucks per day) × (%
company trucks) × Expected waiting time per truck.
= (3 × 8) × (0.40) × [λ /μ(μ − λ)] = 24 × 0.40 × [3 / 4(4-3)
= 24 × 0.40 × 0.75
= 7.2 hours per day.

Lecture notes on PE 5001 Manufacturing Process II, Joyjeet Ghose

M / M / 1 / (∞ / FIFO): Examples
• Example 6: A repairman is to be hired to repair machines, which break down at
an average rate of 3 per hour. The breakdown follows Poisson distribution. Non -
productive time of a machine is considered to cost Rs. 16/- per hour. Two
repairmen have been interviewed. One is slow but cheap while the other is fast
but expensive. The slow worker charges Rs. 8/- per hour and the services
breakdown machines at the rate of 4 per hour. The fast repairman demands Rs.
10/- per hour and services at an average rate of 6 per hour. Which repairman is to
be hired?
• Data: λ = 3 machines per hour, Idle time cost of machine is Rs. 16/- per hour,
Slow repair man charges Rs. 8/- per hour and repairs 4 machines per hour = μ1,
Fast worker demands Rs. 10 per hour and repairs 6 machines per our = μ2

Lecture notes on PE 5001 Manufacturing Process II, Joyjeet Ghose

M / M / 1 / (∞ / FIFO): Examples

• As total cost of fast worker is less than that of slow worker, fast workman should
be hired.

Lecture notes on PE 5001 Manufacturing Process II, Joyjeet Ghose

M / M / 1 / (∞ / FIFO): Examples
• Example 7:There is a congestion of the platform of a railway station. The trains
arrive at the rate of 30 trains per day. The waiting time for any train to hump is
exponentially distributed with an average of 36 minutes. Calculate: (a) The mean
queue size, (b) The probability that the queue size exceeds 9.
• Solution:
• Data: Arrival rate 30 trains per day, service time = 36 minutes.
• λ = 30 trains per day. Hence inter arrival time = λ / 1 = (60 × 24) / 30 = 1 / 48
minutes. Given that the inter service time = µ / 1 = 36 minutes. Therefore ρ = ) / (
µ λ = 36 / 48 = 0.75.
• (a) The mean queue size = E (n) = ρ / ) ρ 1 ( − = 0.75 / (1 . 0.75) = 0.75 / 0.25 = 3
trains.
• (b) Probability that queue size exceeds 9 = Probability of queue size ≥ 10 = 1 .
Probability of queue size less than 10 = 1 - (p0 + p1 + p2 ...+ p9) = p0 (1+ ρ+ ρ2+
.... ρ9) =

Lecture notes on PE 5001 Manufacturing Process II, Joyjeet Ghose

M / M / 1 / (∞ / FIFO): Examples
• Example 8: Let on the average 96 patients per 24-hour day require the service of
an emergency clinic. Also on average, a patient requires 10 minutes of active
attention. Assume that the facilities can handle only one emergency at a time.
Suppose that it costs the clinic Rs. 100/- per patient treated to obtain an average
servicing time of 10 minutes and that each minute of decrease in this average
time would costs Rs. 10/- per patient treated. How much would have to be
budgeted by the clinic to decrease the average sizeof the queue from one and one
third patient to half a patient?
• Solution: Data: λ = 96 / 24 = 4 patients per hour., µ = (1 / 10) × 60 = 6 patients
per hour. Hence ρ =µ / λ = 4 / 6 = 2 / 3.
• Average number of patients in waiting line = E (L) =
patients. = One and one third patients. Now
this is to be reduced to 1/2 = E’ (L).

• (Note ’µ’ = .4 is not considered as it does not convey any meaning.)

• Average time required by each patient = 1/8 hour = 15 / 2 minutes = 7 ½ minutes.
• Decrease in time required by each patient 10 . (15 / 2) = 5 / 2 minutes or 2 ½ minutes.
• The budget required for each patient = Rs. [100 + 10 × (5/2)] Rs. 125/-
• Thus decrease the size of the queue; the budget per patient should be increased from Rs. 100/- to Rs. 125/-.

Lecture notes on PE 5001 Manufacturing Process II, Joyjeet Ghose

M / M / 1 / (∞ / FIFO): Examples
• Example 9: Arrival rate of telephone calls at a telephone booth is according to
Poisson distribution, with an average time of 9 minutes between consecutive
arrivals. The length of telephone call is exponentially distributed with a man of 3
minutes. Find:
• (a) Determine the probability that a person arriving at the booth will have to
wait.
• (b) Find the average queue length that forms from time to time.
• (c) The telephone company will install a second booth when conveniences that an
arrival would expect to have to wait at least four minutes for the phone. Find the
increase in flow of arrivals, which will justify a second booth.
• (d) What is the probability that an arrival will have to wait for more than 10
minutes before the phone is free?
• (e) What is the probability that they will have to wait for more than 10 minutes
before the phone is available and the call is also complete?
• (f) Find the fraction of a day that the phone will be in use.

Lecture notes on PE 5001 Manufacturing Process II, Joyjeet Ghose

M / M / 1 / (∞ / FIFO): Examples

Lecture notes on PE 5001 Manufacturing Process II, Joyjeet Ghose

M / M / 1 / (∞ / FIFO): Examples
• Example 10: In large maintenance department fitters draw parts from the parts
stores, which is at present staffed by one storekeeper. The maintenance foreman
is concerned about the time spent by fitters in getting parts and wants to know if
the employment of a stores helper would be worthwhile. On investigation it is
found that:
• (a) A simple queue situation exists,
• (b) Fitters cost Rs. 2.50 per hour,
• (c) The storekeeper costs Rs. 2/- per hour and can deal on an average with 10
fitters per hour.
• (d) A labour can be employed at Rs. 1.75 per hour and would increase the
capacity of the stores to 12 per hour.
• (e) On an average 8 fitters visit the stores each hour.

Lecture notes on PE 5001 Manufacturing Process II, Joyjeet Ghose

M / M / 1 / (∞ / FIFO): Examples
• Solution
• Data: λ = 8 fitters per hour, μ = 10 per hour.
• Number of fitters in the system = E (n) = λ /(µ −λ) or ) ρ/(1 − ρ) = 8 / (10 - 8) =
4 fitters.
• With stores labour λ = 8 per hour, µ = 12 per hour.
• Number of fitters in the system = E (n) = λ /(µ −λ) = 8 / (12 - 8) = 2 fitters.
• Cost per hour = Cost of fitter per hour + cost of labour per hour = 2 × Rs. 2.50 +
Rs. 1.75 = Rs. 6.75.
• Since there a net savings of Rs. 3.25 per hour, it is recommended to employ the
labourer.

Lecture notes on PE 5001 Manufacturing Process II, Joyjeet Ghose