The Basics—Single-Channel, Single-Phase Model
A single line of people waiting for some service is arguably the most common business model on our planet (see Figure 2.1 for a diagram of this configuration). The variations on this simple theme are nearly infinite when you consider the forms that the service can take and the nature of the customers desiring that service.
We will use a coffee shop where customers from different walks of life enter the shop; wait in line; and, when they reach the service window, order anything from a simple cup of coffee to a more complex mixture of coffee and other ingredients to larger orders of multiple combinations of these. To analyze the basic behavior of this model, we must make some assumptions ...
Get Operations Methods now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.
