Analysis of Two-Station Polling Queues with Setups using Continuous Time Markov Chain

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel state-space reduction method for analyzing two-station polling queues with setups, providing reliable performance estimates and insights into how asymmetry impacts system performance.

Contribution

It proposes a partially-collapsible state-space approach that reduces complexity and improves performance analysis accuracy for tandem polling queues with setups.

Findings

The new approach yields reliable estimates of performance measures.

System asymmetry significantly affects performance.

Numerical results validate the accuracy of the method.

Abstract

The paper analyzes the performance of tandem network of polling queue with setups. For a system with two-products and two-stations, we propose a new approach based on a partially-collapsible state-space characterization to reduce state-space complexity. In this approach, the size of the state-space is varied depending on the information needed to determine buffer levels and waiting times. We evaluate system performance under different system setting and comment on the numerical accuracy of the approach as well as provide managerial insights. Numerical results show that approach yields reliable estimates of the performance measures. We also show how product and station asymmetry significantly affect the systems performance.