THE BILINGUAL SERVER SYSTEM - A QUEUING MODEL FEATURING FULLY AND PARTIALLY QUALIFIED SERVERS

Numerous organizations are required to provide service in two language s in the same local area. Within each such region, one language (the m ajority language) predominates, but adequate service in the second (th e minority language) must be maintained. The servers hired by the orga nization either speak both languages (bilingual), or only speak the ma jority language (unilingual). This paper presents a server provisionin g scenario for handling this mix of traffic. The queueing model for th is problem is then presented. Performance measures that are derived in clude the average queueing delays, the queue length distribution, and the probability of a language mismatch for a minority language custome r. From these, it is possible to find the minimal number of bilingual servers required to maintain ''satisfactory'' service for the minority -language customers. Numerical examples are given.