Subject：To Pool or Not to Pool: Queueing Design for Large-Scale Service Systems

Guest：He Shuangchi, Professor, National University of Singapore

Host：Cao Yufeng, Assistant Professor, ACEM of SJTU

Time：Wednesday, Mar 30th, 2022, 14:00-15:30

Venue: Tencent Meeting

（(Please send email to mliu18@sjtu.edu.cn by 12:00 Mar. 30th for meeting number and password.)

Abstract:

There are two basic queue structures commonly adopted in service systems: the pooled structure, where waiting customers are organized into a single queue served by a group of servers, and the dedicated structure, where each server has her own queue. Although the pooled structure, known to minimize the servers’ idle time, is widely used in large-scale service systems, this study reveals that the dedicated structure, along with the join-the-shortest-queue routing policy, could be more advantageous for improving certain performance measures, such as the probability of a customers’ waiting time being within a delay target. The servers’ additional idleness resulting from the dedicated structure will be negligible when the system scale is large. Using a fluid model substantiated by asymptotic analysis, we provide a performance comparison between the two structures for a moderately overloaded queueing system with customer abandonment. We intend to help service system designers answer the following question: To reach a specified service-level target, which queue structure will be more cost effective?

Guest Bio：

He Shuangchi is Associate Professor and Deputy Head for Research in the Department of IndustrialSystems