Some finite horizon dispatching problems
By: by Edward A. Brill
Contributors: Naval Postgraduate School (U.S.)
Publisher: Naval Postgraduate School
Published: 1971
Place of publication: Monterey, California
Language: eng
Number of pages: 23
Subjects: Poisson processes; Queuing theory; Birth and death processes (Stochastic processes)
Description: An arrival process (N(t), 0 = or t = or T) is to be dispatched one or more times in the time interval (0,T). The problem is to determine the optimal number of dispatches K given there are n available and to determine sequentially the epochs of dispatch tau sub 1, ..., tau sub K. There are two trade off costs c sub w and c sub d, which are respectively the cost per unit time of a waiting customer and the cost of dispatching a single unit. A general result is found which gives one optimal tau sub 1, ..., tau sub K for fixed K (i.e. the K-optimal policy) under certain regularity conditions. This is used to obtain suboptimal policies for multiple dispatching of a Poisson process and single dispatching of a birth-death process. Applications to problems in transportation, repair facilities and insect-control are indicated. (Author)
Notes: Title from cover.

"June 1971"--Cover.

"NPS-55ZG71061A"--Cover.

DTIC Identifiers: Birth and death processes, poisson processes.

Author(s) subject terms: Dispatch, optimal stopping, monotone case, dynamic programming, poisson process, birth-death process.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 19).

"Approved for public release; distribution unlimited"--Cover.

Technical report; 1971.