ERROR-BOUNDS ON A PRACTICAL APPROXIMATION FOR FINITE TANDEM QUEUES

A simple practical approximation is studied for a two-stage tandem que ue with a finite first station. Explicit small error bounds are obtain ed for the mean queue length and the tail probabilities of the second queue. These error bounds are based on a new application of an existin g error bound theorem for comparing Markov chains. The extension requi res the so-called bias-terms to be bounded by a bounding function that can be unbounded or oppositely become small. The extension is of inte rest for further exploitation. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science B.V.