Operations Research

8

Queuing Theory

8.1  INTRODUCTION

The term ‘Queue’ refers to a waiting line. Almost every individual spent some part of his life waiting in the line in order to get some kind of service. Even this statement holds good for every object also.

For example,

1. People wait at Railway Counters
2. People wait at Ration shops
3. People wait at Banks
4. People wait at Petrol Pumps
5. Trucks wait at the Weigh-Bridge
6. Broken machine waits for repair
7. Officers of an organization may wait for a car. All these cause queuing situations.

Queuing theory was originated from the work of A.K. Erlang, an engineer in Copenhagen Telephone Exchange who studied the reason for the delay of telephone operators and published his findings as a paper in 1909, under the title “The Theory ...