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DYNAMIC ASSIGNMENT OF DEDICATED AND FLEXIBLE SERVERS IN TANDEM LINES

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 October 2007

Sigrún Andradóttir ,
Hayriye Ayhan  and
Douglas G. Down
Sigrún Andradóttir
Affiliation:
H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering Georgia Institute of TechnologyAtlanta, GA 30332-0205 E-mail: hayhan@isye.gatech.edu
Hayriye Ayhan
Affiliation:
H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering Georgia Institute of TechnologyAtlanta, GA 30332-0205 E-mail: hayhan@isye.gatech.edu
Douglas G. Down
Affiliation:
Department of Computing and SoftwareMcMaster University Hamilton, Ontario L8S 4L7, Canada
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Abstract

Consider a system of queuing stations in tandem having both flexible servers (who are capable of working at multiple stations) and dedicated servers (who can only work at the station to which they are dedicated). We study the dynamic assignment of servers to stations in such systems with the goal of maximizing the long-run average throughput. We also investigate how the number of flexible servers influences the throughput and compare the improvement that is obtained by cross-training another server (i.e., increasing flexibility) with the improvement obtained by adding a resource (i.e., a new server or a buffer space). Finally, we show that having only one flexible server is sufficient for achieving near-optimal throughput in certain systems with moderate to large buffer sizes (the optimal throughput is attained by having all servers flexible). Our focus is on systems with generalist servers who are equally skilled at all tasks, but we also consider systems with arbitrary service rates.

Type
Research Article
Information
Probability in the Engineering and Informational Sciences , Volume 21 , Issue 4 , October 2007 , pp. 497 - 538
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2007

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