Importance

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Abstract

A method for controlling arrivals to servers, comprising: regulating arrivals, by initiating a processor generating arrivals or by re-routing or turning away arrivals; measuring durations of service; computing and updating time statistics, including mean, minimum, maximum expected and standard deviation of duration of service thereby estimating expected duration of service; measuring transit times from the point of regulating arrivals to start of service and thereby estimating expected transit times; measuring a ratio of numbers of service initiations to numbers of arrivals at the point of regulating arrivals; recording starting time of each current service; noting present time; comparing present time to starting time, and thereby determining time in progress for each service; comparing time in progress to expected duration of service, and estimating time remaining in service for each customer currently in service; comparing estimated time remaining in service to estimated transit time from the point of regulating arrivals to the start of service, determining a number of currently busy servers expected to be available by the time another arrival could reach them; measuring the number of available servers not currently serving; adding the number of currently available servers and the number of currently busy servers expected to be available and thereby computing total number of servers expected to be available; subtracting the number of arrivals currently queued awaiting service thereby producing a resultant number of servers expected to be available; and controlling a means for regulating arrivals to correspond to the resultant number of servers expected to be available.

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First Claim