OPTIMAL-CONTROL OF A REMOVABLE AND NON-RELIABLE SERVER IN A MARKOVIANQUEUING SYSTEM WITH FINITE-CAPACITY

This paper studies the economic behavior of a removable and non-reliab le server in an Markovian queueing system with finite capacity under s teady-state conditions. The removable server applies the N policy whic h turns the server on when the queue length reaches the value N, and t urns the server off when the system is empty. The server may break dow n only if operating and require repair at a repair facility. Interarri val and service times of the customers, and breakdown and repair times of the server, are assumed to follow a negative exponential distribut ion. A cost model is developed to determine the optimal operating N po licy numerically in order to minimize the total expected cost per unit time.