Queuing Theory Articles

A Queueing (Queuing) System is a structure where things arrive (anything, including people), they join a line, wait for service.  After being served, they exit the system. One result of Queueing Theory is Little’s Law: Little’s Law: For a Queueing (Queuing) System in steady state, the average length L of the queue equals the average [...]

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Does the shape of the queue matter?  What determines how waiting lines are organized? A provocative young artist recently published a set of infographics that compare the differences between the West and the East.  In one of those, she portrays the differences in waiting between the West and the East. In that infographic, you get [...]

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We’ve adopted four beautiful kids; in addition to our biological kids, that makes for a big family.  Yeah, I know. Crazy.  But, we’re happy. Aside from the obscene amount of money we’ve spent on adopting four kids – none of which I regret – we’ve also spent a lot of time.  In fact, all of [...]

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We’re accustomed to viewing queues as serial lines, or people waiting to be served.  But, not much thought is given to the shapes of queues. Well, a Bracket is a type of Queue. In general, a queue is a line of people or things waiting to be handled, sometimes in sequential order starting at the [...]

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There is a Design Thinking opportunity to Emergency Room care.  In my previous post, I discussed the time involved in waiting to receive care -queueing properties of ER care.  What I didn’t discuss is the feeling and experience of the patient during care.  That’s the topic for this post today. We know that ER Wait [...]

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Earlier this week, I went to Jiffy Lube to get my oil change. I once worked for a person responsible for the redesign of many waiting rooms in various industries, so I went with an observant eye, looking for the items that he taught me about in his ethnographic work.   It was a very [...]

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I took the kids to see a movie at a nearby dollar theater many weeks ago.  We saw Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium and some parts of that movie has stayed with me.  I thought that the movie was actually very good: it was an overall very good feel-good movie, with a very good message.  One [...]

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