The Value of Queueing Theory

Queueing theory is one of those subjects most frequently taught in beginning operations research/management science courses. However, practitioners of OR/MS may question the practicality of teaching queueing theory, given the sparsity of articles showing actual applications. While numerous articles on queueing developments have appeared in the literature, and a few articles showing “alleged” applications have surfaced, the number of articles showing true implementations with documented savings are few if not nonexistent.

Why are there so few implementations of queueing theory? The following short case studies may provide an answer. Each of the studies is based upon true facts, although some studies are actually anthologies of several analytical efforts. What follows takes the form of a story involving a project that I assigned to a group of students: they were to apply one of the queueing models they studied to some real-world system. The following sections outline the experiences of each of these students and highlight a class review session that was designed to answer the students' questions arising from their experiences.