Praise for the Third Edition: "This is one of the best books available. Its excellent organizational structure allows quick reference to specific models and its clear presentation . . . solidifies the understanding of the concepts being presented."IIE Transactions on Operations EngineeringThoroughly revised and expanded to reflect the latest developments in the field, Fundamentals of Queueing Theory, Fourth Edition continues to present the basic statistical principles that are necessary to analyze the probabilistic nature of queues. Rather than presenting a narrow focus on the subject, this update illustrates the wide-reaching, fundamental concepts in queueing theory and its applications to diverse areas such as computer science, engineering, business, and operations research.This update takes a numerical approach to understanding and making probable estimations relating to queues, with a comprehensive outline of simple and more advanced queueing models. Newly featured topics of the Fourth Edition include:Retrial queuesApproximations for queueing networksNumerical inversion of transformsDetermining the appropriate number of servers to balance quality and cost of serviceEach chapter provides a self-contained presentation of key concepts and formulae, allowing readers to work with each section independently, while a summary table at the end of the book outlines the types of queues that have been discussed and their results. In addition, two new appendices have been added, discussing transforms and generating functions as well as the fundamentals of differential and difference equations. New examples are now included along with problems that incorporate QtsPlus software, which is freely available via the book's related Web site.With its accessible style and wealth of real-world examples, Fundamentals of Queueing Theory, Fourth Edition is an ideal book for courses on queueing theory at the upper-undergraduate and graduate levels. It is also a valuable resource for researchers and practitioners who analyze congestion in the fields of telecommunications, transportation, aviation, and management science.

Fundamentals of Queueing Theory

Call centers are an increasingly important part of today's business world, employing millions of agents across the globe and serving as a primary customer-facing channel for firms in many different industries. Call centers have been a fertile area for operations management researchers in several domains, including forecasting, capacity planning, queueing, and personnel scheduling. In addition, as telecommunications and information technology have advanced over the past several years, the operational challenges faced by call center managers have become more complicated. Issues associated with human resources management, sales, and marketing have also become increasingly relevant to call center operations and associated academic research.

In this paper, we provide a survey of the recent literature on call center operations management. Along with traditional research areas, we pay special attention to new management challenges that have been caused by emerging technologies, to behavioral issues associated with both call center agents and customers, and to the interface between call center operations and sales and marketing. We identify a handful of broad themes for future investigation while also pointing out several very specific research opportunities.

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The Modern Call Center: A Multi-Disciplinary Perspective on Operations Management Research

Personnel scheduling: A literature review

Queueing Theory has a wide range of applications, and this article is designed to give an illustration of some of these. It has been divided into 3 main sections, Traffic Flow, Scheduling and Facility Design and Employee Allocation. The given examples are certainly not the only applications where queuing theory can be put to good use, some other examples of areas that queueing theory is used are also given. keywords Queuing system, single server model, arrival rate, service rate, infinite and finite models. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________

Applications of Queueing Theory

Managing truck arrivals with time windows to alleviate gate congestion at container terminals

Approximation of the non-stationary M(t)/M(t)/c(t)-queue using stationary queueing models: The stationary backlog-carryover approach

Branch-and-price approaches for the Multiperiod Technician Routing and Scheduling Problem

Many queueing systems are subject to time-dependent changes in system parameters, such as the arrival rate or number of servers. Examples include time-dependent call volumes and agents at inbound call centers, time-varying air traffic at airports, time-dependent truck arrival rates at seaports, and cyclic message volumes in computer systems.There are several approaches for the performance analysis of queueing systems with deterministic parameter changes over time. In this survey, we develop a classification scheme that groups these approaches according to their underlying key ideas into (i) numerical and analytical solutions, (ii) approaches based on models with piecewise constant parameters, and (iii) approaches based on modified system characteristics. Additionally, we identify links between the different approaches and provide a survey of applications that are categorized into service, road and air traffic, and IT systems.

Performance Analysis of Time-Dependent Queueing Systems: Survey and Classification

Many queueing systems are subject to time-dependent changes in system parameters, such as the arrival rate or number of servers. Examples include time-dependent call volumes and agents at inbound call centers, time-varying air traffic at airports, time-dependent truck arrival rates at seaports, and cyclic message volumes in computer systems. There are several approaches for the performance analysis of queueing systems with deterministic parameter changes over time. In this survey, we develop a classification scheme that groups these approaches according to their underlying key ideas into (i) numerical and analytical solutions, (ii) approaches based on models with piecewise constant parameters, and (iii) approaches based on modified system characteristics. Additionally, we identify links between the different approaches and provide a survey of applications that are categorized into service, road and air traffic, and IT systems.

Performance analysis of time-dependent queueing systems: Survey and classification

This paper addresses operation models for workforce planning for check-in systems at airports. We characterize different tasks of the hierarchical workforce planning problem with time-dependent demand. A binary linear programming formulation is developed for the fortnightly tour scheduling problem with flexible employee contracts. This binary programming model is solved for optimality by CPLEX for real-world demand scenarios with different workforce sizes. The numerical study analyzes the impact of the degree of flexibility and economies of scale. The model formulation is extended to generate convenient tours with regard to employee preferences.

Raik Stolletz

Papers

Approximation of the non-stationary M(t)/M(t)/c(t)-queue using stationary queueing models: The stationary backlog-carryover approach

Branch-and-price approaches for the Multiperiod Technician Routing and Scheduling Problem

Performance Analysis of Time-Dependent Queueing Systems: Survey and Classification

Performance analysis of time-dependent queueing systems: Survey and classification

Operational workforce planning for check-in counters at airports