We define a high volume factory to be a connected network of workstations, at which assigned workers process work-in-progress that flows at high rates through the workstations. A high rate usually implies that each worker processes many pieces per hour, enough so that work can be described as a...

To reduce lead-time and its variability, modern supply and transportation contracts often specify the frequency of, and volume available for, future deliveries in advance even when final demand is somewhat uncertain (Yano and Gerchak [Yano, C. A., Y. Gerchak. 1989. Transportation contracts and...

Two models are presented as aids in setting realistic numerical goals for the employment of women and minority persons, and in evaluating progress towards meeting such goals. By modelling personnel flows in terms of hiring and persistence rates for various job categories, we develop a consistent...

It is well known that flexibility can be created in manufacturing and service operations by using multipurpose production sources such as cross-trained labor, flexible machines, or flexible factories. We focus on flexible service centers, such as inbound call centers with cross-trained agents,...

Customers arrive at a service area according to a Poisson process. An arriving customer must choose one of K servers without observing present congestion levels. The only available information about the kth server is the service time distribution (with expected duration \mu _k^-1) and the cost per...

To aid in understanding how best to respond to a bioterror anthrax attack, we analyze a system of differential equations that includes an atmospheric release model, a spatial array of biosensors, a dose-response model, a disease progression model, and a set of spatially distributed tandem queues...

We develop a new model for studying the phenomenon of congestion in a transient environment, focusing on the problem of aircraft landings at a busy "hub" airport. Our model is based on a Markov/semi-Markov treatment of changes in the weather, the principal source of uncertainty governing service...

This note evaluates the approximation of overflow probability put forward by Sakasegawa et al (in a paper published recently in Management Science [5]), and its level of accuracy when applied to traffic generated by bursty sources.

We analyze the allocation of priority in queues via simple bidding mechanisms. In our model, the stochastically arriving customers are privately informed about their own processing time. They make bids upon arrival at a queue whose length is unobservable. We consider two bidding schemes that...

We investigate how dynamic resource substitution in service systems impacts capacity requirements and responsiveness. Inspired by the contrasting network strategies of FedEx and United Parcel Service (UPS), we study when two service classes (e.g., express or regular) should be served by...