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Table 1 Kendall's notation for Queueing Models

From: A Spoonful of Math Helps the Medicine Go Down: An Illustration of How Healthcare can Benefit from Mathematical Modeling and Analysis

Position

Meaning

Description

1st (A)

Arrival Process

This parameter describes how customers arrive at the system. In particular, whether they arrive in groups or as individuals and the distribution of inter-arrival times.

2nd (B)

Service Time Distribution

This parameter describes the distribution of service times.

3rd (C)

Number of Servers

Often this parameter is 1, meaning that there is only one server, but multi-server systems are common, and so most results are generalized to an arbitrary number of servers, c. Some queues can also have infinite servers.

4th (K)

System Capacity

This parameter indicates how many custometers can be served at one time, including those in service. It is often assumed to be sufficiently large as to never be an issue.

5th (D)

Service Discipline

This parameter refers to the order (or discipline) that arriving customers are served. For most examples the discipline is First Come First Served (FCFS). But other options exist such as Last Come First Served (LCFS) and Service In Random Order (SIRO)