Queueing Systems with Server Synchronization

具有服务器同步的排队系统

• 批准号: 1536990
• 负责人: Sigrun Andradottir
• 金额: $ 35万
• 依托单位: Georgia Tech Research Corporation
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2015-07-15 至 2020-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1536990&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Queueing; Systems; Server; Synchronization

This project is concerned with improving business operations through the development of enhanced workforce management techniques. The goal is to determine how workers should be assigned dynamically to tasks in the presence of uncertain demand and processing requirements for various products and services. The main novelty is the incorporation of synchronization constraints on worker assignment. For example, the completion of certain tasks may require a team of workers, whereas other tasks require one worker at a time. In both cases, workers must synchronize their schedules in that they must be simultaneously at either the same or different tasks. This project involves the development of easily implementable, robust, and dynamic policies for assigning workers to tasks in real time, taking into account such synchronization constraints on worker assignment. Potential application areas include health care delivery, job shop scheduling, call centers, project management, and parallel computing. If successful, this award will yield valuable insights and concrete guidelines for how the performance of a large class of production and service systems can be improved at low cost by better utilizing the available workers and other resources.The planned research involves modeling businesses as queueing networks and workers as servers. The research objectives will be achieved through sample-path analysis, Markov decision processes, fluid limit analysis, computer simulation, and linear programming. In particular, for networks with general topologies and infinite buffers, fluid limit analysis will be used to identify what fraction of time the servers should spend in the various possible server configurations. Then dynamic server allocation policies that come arbitrarily close to being optimal will be developed. On the other hand, systems with finite buffers will be analyzed using Markov decision process techniques, where there will be constraints on server assignments. The proposed research involves the rigorous analysis and control of queueing systems with flexible, heterogeneous servers when the schedules of different servers must be synchronized (e.g., to account for needed collaboration or non-collaboration). The focus is on maximizing system capacity (throughput), but other performance measures will also be considered, including holding costs.

该项目涉及通过开发增强的劳动力管理技术来改善业务运营。 目的是确定在不确定的各种产品和服务的需求和处理要求的情况下，应如何将工人动态分配给任务。 主要的新颖性是将同步约束纳入工人分配。 例如，某些任务的完成可能需要一组工人，而其他任务一次需要一个工人。 在这两种情况下，工人都必须同步他们的时间表，因为他们必须同时在相同或不同的任务下同时进行。 该项目涉及开发易于实施，健壮和动态策略，以实时将工人分配给任务，并考虑到工人分配的这种同步约束。 潜在的应用领域包括医疗保健提供，车间调度，呼叫中心，项目管理和并行计算。 如果成功，该奖项将产生宝贵的见解和具体指南，以通过更好地利用可用的工人和其他资源来以低成本改善大量生产和服务系统的性能。计划的研究涉及将业务建模作为排队网络的建模和工人作为服务器。 研究目标将通过样本路径分析，马尔可夫决策过程，流体限制分析，计算机模拟和线性编程来实现。特别是，对于具有一般拓扑和无限缓冲区的网络，将使用流体限制分析来确定服务器应在各种可能的服务器配置中花费的时间。 然后将制定任意接近最佳的动态服务器分配策略。另一方面，将使用Markov决策过程技术对具有有限缓冲区的系统进行分析，在该技术将在服务器分配上有限制。 拟议的研究涉及在必须同步不同服务器的时间表时（例如，说明所需的协作或非合作）时，对具有灵活，异构服务器的排队系统进行了严格的分析和控制。 重点是最大化系统容量（吞吐量），但还将考虑其他绩效指标，包括持有成本。