FREE EDITION / Simulation / 6 MIN
The Queue Room
Allocate four work units per shift. Compare completion counts with the old work that remains.
By the Oddoscope editorial desk. Times include reflection and are estimates.
A small model with visible rules
Fictional deterministic queue: four shifts, four work units each, divisible work, no switching cost or random arrivals. Shift arrivals are A:6/B:1, C:2/D:1, E:5/F:1, G:1/H:2. All work is equally important. Arrivals enter before service. Compare arrival order, shortest remaining work and longest remaining work. Ties use arrival order.
What to notice
Compare finished jobs with remaining work and accumulated waiting. Waiting burden adds one job-shift for every unfinished job after each shift, including its arrival shift. It is not a long-run waiting-time estimate. No rule increases the sixteen available work units. This model omits urgency, abandonment and switching costs; it cannot select a fair rule for a real workplace.
QUEUE ROOM / 1 OF 4
Fictional deterministic queue: four shifts, four work units each, divisible work, no switching cost or random arrivals. Shift arrivals are A:6/B:1, C:2/D:1, E:5/F:1, G:1/H:2. All work is equally important. Arrivals enter before service. First arrival and oldest first intentionally coincide here: test whether a different name changes your expectation, not the rule.
- Finished jobs
- 0
- Work remaining
- 0 units
- Waiting burden
- 0 job-shifts
- Capacity used
- 0 / 0 units
Unfinished queue: empty.
Shift 1
Choose a service rule for this shift. Four units of capacity are available. Unfinished work carries forward.
First arrival preserves arrival order. Shortest remaining clears small jobs first. Longest remaining protects the job waiting longest; ties use arrival order. Work is divisible; switching is free. Jobs are ordered once at the start of the shift, then served in that order.
Sources and editorial notes
John D. C. Little — A Proof for the Queuing Formula (1961) — Primary mathematical paper. Its stationary, finite-average assumptions matter; our four-shift toy is not a test of the theorem.
Original Oddoscope writing and artwork. All scenarios and numbers are fictional teaching examples; sources are credited, not reproduced.