We study strategic customer behavior in a multiserver stochastic service system with a congestion-based staffing (CBS) policy. With the CBS policy, the number of working servers is dynamically adjusted according to the queue length. Besides lining up for free service, customers have the option...

Motivated by the waiting lines between the U.S.-Canadian border crossings, we investigate a security-check system with both security and customer service goals. In such a system, every customer has to be inspected by the first-stage inspector, but only a proportion of customers need to go...

It has become increasingly common for companies to offer make-to-stock (MTS) and make-to-order (MTO) versions of the same product through different sales channels. To satisfy these two distinct demand streams, one strategy is to produce both the MTS and MTO items in a single “hybrid”...

A system is subject to shocks that arrive according to a non-homogeneous pure birth process. As shocks occur, the system has two types of failures. Type-I failure (minor failure) is removed by a general repair, whereas type-II failure (catastrophic failure) is removed by an unplanned...

This paper evaluates the impact of price discount contracts and pricing schemes on the dual-channel supply chain competition. Channel conflict occurs when the supplier enters the online direct channel. Traditional contracts normally require tedious administrational participation, full...

This paper analyzes a waiting line system that is motivated by the operations of border-crossing stations between the United States and Canada. There are two main conflicting goals in such a system: high security level, which often leads to a longer line; and good customer service, which requires...

This note clarifies the concept of regeneration cycle used in evaluating the average operating cost of the M/G/1 queue with T-policy studied in 70s. Two ways of defining the regeneration cycle are compared and advantages and disadvantages of each way are pointed out. In addition, we establish...

Nonlinear pricing (a form of second-degree price discrimination) is widely used in transportation and other industries but it has been largely overlooked in the road-pricing literature. This paper explores the incentives for a profit-maximizing toll-road operator to adopt some simple nonlinear...