Article ID: | iaor200973437 |
Volume: | 172 |
Issue: | 1 |
Start Page Number: | 231 |
End Page Number: | 242 |
Publication Date: | Nov 2009 |
Journal: | Annals of Operations Research |
Authors: | Arumugam Ramesh, Mayorga Maria E, Taaffe Kevin M |
Keywords: | queues: applications |
Consider a firm that operates a make-to-order serial production system and employs a cross-trained workforce. We model such a firm as a tandem queuing system in which flexible servers can be allocated across stations, and assume that a switching cost is charged when servers move between stations. We show that even in the two-station two-server case the optimal policy follows a complex state-dependent structure that may be difficult to implement in practice. We propose three alternate heuristic policies and assess their performance. We show that a simpler policy which only moves one server can achieve close to optimal results.