Queuing Systems with Preferred Service Start Times and Multiple Customer Classes

Melis Boran, Department of Industrial Engineering, METU

Abstract

Motivated by the operational problems in curbside pickup systems, in this study, a capacity allocation problem in a queuing system, where arriving customers have preferred service start times, is studied. In the illustrated system, customers may have different priorities. All requests are assumed to be served before or during their requested time period. To increase the generality of the model, actions of early service, rejecting a customer request, and outsourcing (or equivalently working overtime) are allowed for the service provider. We model this problem as a Markov Decision Process. We analyze the structural properties to identify a set of suboptimal solutions and use these results to develop efficient solution methods and enhance existing methods' performance. We also develop state space aggregation methods to solve problem instances of larger size.

Short Bio

Melis Boran received her B.Sc. degree from Galatasaray University Industrial Engineering Department in 2017. She has received her M.Sc. degree from Middle East Technical University Operational Research Department in 2020. She currently holds a research assistant position in the Department of Industrial Engineering METU, where she continues her Ph.D. studies. Her research interests include Markov decision processes and maritime logistic problems.

Venue

Friday, October 30, 2020, 4.00 pm - Zoom Meeting