Chapter 4
More Complex Single-Channel Models
In many service businesses and manufacturing line applications, the basic M/M/1 model does not provide useful results that appear to agree with reality. There are several possible reasons for this poor performance:
- Chief and foremost, the waiting line formulas are based on the waiting line achieving a steady-state condition. This takes time and should lead you to the observation that the formulas are likely to be a poor predictor of what occurs at the beginning of a business day.
- The service time distribution is not best described by an exponential distribution.
- The capacity for accommodating the waiting line is limited.
- The calling population is not infinite.
- The interarrival time distribution is ...