Business Process Modeling, Simulation and Design

CHAPTER 6

Introduction to Queuing and Simulation

The process models analyzed in Chapters 4 and 5 have one thing in common: They assume that activity times and demand are deterministic and constant; that is, that they are known with certainty. In reality, an element of variability will always exist in the time it takes to perform a certain task and in the demand for service. In situations where the variability is small, deterministic models of the type studied in Chapters 4 and 5 might be an adequate way of describing a process. However, in situations with more accentuated variability, these models do not suffice. In fact, the variability itself is often one of the most important characteristics to capture in the model of a process.

Consider, ...