Optimal control of a removable server in an M/G/1 queue with finite capacity

We consider an M/G/1 system with finite capacity L in which the removable server applies a (ν, N) policy; a classical cost structure is imposed and the total expected cost per unit time in the steady state is considered. For the M/M/1 situation, Hersh and Brosh 3] analysed the policies with 0⩾ν<N⩽L and established that the best of them is characterized either by ν = 0 or by N = L. By a different and quite easy way and for a general service time distribution, we prove that an optimal policy has the form (ν = 0, 0 ⩽ N ⩽ L + 1), where the (0, 0) and (0, L + 1) policies consist in never closing or never opening the station respectively. Moreover, we describe a precise technique to analyse the policy space and to determine easily the optimal policy.