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Queueing models for appointment-driven systems

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Abstract

Many service systems are appointment-driven. In such systems, customers make an appointment and join an external queue (also referred to as the “waiting list”). At the appointed date, the customer arrives at the service facility, joins an internal queue and receives service during a service session. After service, the customer leaves the system. Important measures of interest include the size of the waiting list, the waiting time at the service facility and server overtime. These performance measures may support strategic decision making concerning server capacity (e.g. how often, when and for how long should a server be online). We develop a new model to assess these performance measures. The model is a combination of a vacation queueing system and an appointment system.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Decision Sciences and Information Management, Research Center for Operations Management, K.U. Leuven, Naamsestraat 69, 3000, Leuven, Belgium

    Stefan Creemers & Marc Lambrecht

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  1. Stefan Creemers
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  2. Marc Lambrecht
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Correspondence to Stefan Creemers.

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Creemers, S., Lambrecht, M. Queueing models for appointment-driven systems. Ann Oper Res 178, 155–172 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10479-009-0646-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10479-009-0646-9

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