When managing congested service systems, it is common to use priority rules based on some operational criteria. In this paper, we consider the societal implications of such individual-focused priority policies, when individuals are considered as members of broader population groups. We find that...

Consider the following due-date scheduling problem in a multiclass, acyclic, single-station service system: any class k job arriving at time t must be served by its due date t D_{k}. Equivalently, its delay ¦Ó_{k} must not exceed a given delay or lead-time D_{k}. In a stochastic system the...

We study how multi-product queueing systems should be controlled so that sojourn times (or end-to-end delays) do not exceed specified leadtimes. The network dynamically decides when to admit new arrivals and how to sequence the jobs in the system. To analyze this difficult problem, we propose an...

We consider a general single-server multiclass queueing system that incurs a delay cost Ck(Tk) for each class k job that resides Tk units of time in the system. This paper derives a scheduling policy that minimizes the total cumulative delay cost when the system operates during a finite time...

We present an integrated approach to pricing and scheduling for services that are differentiated in terms of throughput, delay and loss specifications. The key building block to the model are quality value curves that specify a user's value of higher quality levels. From the analysis emerges a...

This article studies the optimal prices and service quality grades that a queuing system --- the "firm” --- provides to heterogeneous, utility-maximizing customers who measure quality by their experienced delay distributions. Results are threefold: First, delay cost curves are introduced that...