Optimal scheduling in heterogeneous two-station queueing networks

We consider a two-station network with two types of jobs: type 0 jobs require service at station 1 only and type 1 jobs require service both at station 1 and 2 in sequence. Each station has a single server. The problem is to schedule the server at station 1 between the two types of jobs in order to minimize the linear holding cost of the system. We will treat the discounted as well as the average cost criterion. In both cases we can prove that the optimal policy is a switching-curve policy. A numerical sensitivity analysis is also presented. Copyright Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 1998