| Abstract: | This paper presents a priority queueing situation: a telephone bureau which has to deal with two distinct classes of caller. The first group are making urgent calls which must be dealt with as soon as possible, while the second group are making a variety of different types of routine enquiry which are not considered to be as important. Management are concerned with a number of issues associated with the operations of their bureau, these include the levels of service offered to the different groups of caller, the effects of different levels of staffing, and the effects of changing the mix of call types. The use of applied probability theory to analyse this situation is briefly discussed, and then simulation proposed as a means to analyse the operations of the bureau. The development of this simulation is outlined, some typical results presented and its usefulness discussed. |
