Article ID: | iaor20012022 |
Country: | United States |
Volume: | 48 |
Issue: | 2 |
Start Page Number: | 327 |
End Page Number: | 331 |
Publication Date: | Mar 2000 |
Journal: | Operations Research |
Authors: | Fu Michael C., Marcus Steven I., Wang I.-Jeng |
Keywords: | queues: theory |
We consider the problem of determining the optimal policy for staffing a queueing system over multiple periods, using a model that takes into account transient queueing effects. Formulating the problem in a dynamic programming setting, we show that the optimal policy follows a monotone optimal control by establishing the submodularity of the objective function with respect to the staffing level and initial queue size in a period. In particular, this requires proving that the system occupancy in a