A heuristic for determining the optimal order in a tandem queue

This paper presents a heuristic for determing the optimal order of the stations in a nonblocking tandem queue. Specifically, the authors argue that the first two customers can almost represent the entire arrival stream for comparing expected flow time for different orders of the stations. The heuristic was extensively tested by simulation. The heuristic yielded the optimal order 92% of the time for two-station problems, 85% for three-station problems and 65% for four-station problems. The results of the heuristic were found to be close to optimal orders.