The Kendall–Lee

Notation for Queuing

Systems
Mohamad Ayache 16701680
• The notation is used to describe
a queuing system in which all
arrivals wait in a single line
until one of s identical parallel
servers is free. Then the first
customer in line enters service,
and so on. (Assume for FCFS)
 To describe such a queuing system, Kendall (1951) devised
the following notation.

Each queuing system is described by six characteristics:

1/2/3/4/5/6

Arrival/Service/Servers/Discipline/Customers/Population
 Arrival process
M=Interarrival times are independent, identically distributed (iid)
random variables having an exponential distribution.
D=Interarrival times are iid and deterministic.
Ek=Interarrival times are iid Erlangs with shape parameter k.
GI=Interarrival times are iid and governed by some general distribution.

Arrival/Service/Servers/Discipline/Customers/Population
 Service time

M =Service times are iid and exponentially distributed.

D=Service times are iid and deterministic.
E =Service times are iid Erlangs with shape parameter k.
k

G=Service times are iid and follow some general distribution.

Arrival/Service/Servers/Discipline/Customers/Population
 Number of parallel servers

Arrival/Service/Servers/Discipline/Customers/Population
 Queue discipline

FCFS=First come, first served

LCFS=Last come, first served
SIRO=Service in random order
GD=General queue discipline
Arrival/Service/Servers/Discipline/Customers/Population
 Maximum allowable number of customers in the
system

Arrival/Service/Servers/Discipline/Customers/Population
 Size of the population from which customers are drawn

Arrival/Service/Servers/Discipline/Customers/Population
 Company A has 1000 employees and 50% of them are
workers. A queue system serves only workers. The
arrival process is exponential. Service process have
erlang distribution with shape parameter 3. First in first
out. 5 servers are available.

Arrival/Service/Servers/Discipline/Customers/Population

M/E3/5/FCFS/500/1000
 Health clinic
M/E2/8/FCFS/10/∞
8 doctors, exponential interarrival times, two-phase
Erlang service times, an FCFS queue discipline, and a
total capacity of 10 patients.
M/M/1/GD/∞/∞
Can be written as M/M/1
 Thank you

Feel free to ask any questions related to the subject