Optimal control of noncollaborative servers in two‐stage tandem queueing systems |
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Authors: | Dimitrios G Pandelis |
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Institution: | Division of Production Management and Industrial Administration, Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Thessaly, , Pedion Areos, 38344 Volos, Greece |
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Abstract: | We consider two‐stage tandem queueing systems with dedicated servers in each station and a flexible server that is trained to serve both stations. We assume no arrivals, exponential service times, and linear holding costs for jobs present in the system. We study the optimal dynamic assignment of servers to jobs assuming a noncollaborative work discipline with idling and preemptions allowed. For larger holding costs in the first station, we show that (i) nonidling policies are optimal and (ii) if the flexible server is not faster than the dedicated servers, the optimal server allocation strategy has a threshold‐type structure. For all other cases, we provide numerical results that support the optimality of threshold‐type policies. Our numerical experiments also indicate that when the flexible server is faster than the dedicated server of the second station, the optimal policy may have counterintuitive properties, which is not the case when a collaborative service discipline is assumed. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 61: 435–446, 2014 |
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Keywords: | flexible servers tandem queues dynamic programming |
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