The authors consider the optimal order of servers in a tandem queueing system with m stages, an unlimited supply of customers in front of the first stage, and a service buffer of size 1 but no intermediate storage buffers between the first and second stages. Service times depend on the servers but not the customers, and the blocking mechanism at the first two stages is manufacturing blocking. Using a new characterization of reversed hazard rate order, the authors show that if the service times for two servers are comparable in the reversed hazard rate sense, then the departure process is stochastically earlier if the slower server is first and the faster server is second than if the reverse is true. This strengthens earlier results that considered individual departure times marginally. The authors show similar results for the last two stages and for other blocking mechanisms. They also show that although individual departure times for a system with servers in a given order are stochastically identical to those when the order of servers is reversed, this reversibility property does not hold for the entire departure process.
