The average waiting time and the average number of items waiting for a service in a service system are important measurements for a manager. Little's Law relates these two metrics via the average rate of arrivals to the system. This fundamental law has found numerous uses in operations management and managerial decision making.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Cobham, A. (1954) “Priority Assignment in Waiting Line Problems,” Operations Research, 2, (1) (Feb.), 70–76.
Doob, J. L. (1953) Stochastic Processes, John Wiley, New York.
Eilon, S. (1969) “A Simpler Proof of L = λW,” Operations Research, 17, (5) 915–917.
El-Taha, M. and S. Stidham (1999) Sample-Path Analysis of Queueing Systems, Kluwer Academic, Boston MA.
Hopp, W. J. and M. L. Spearman (2000) Factory Physics: Foundations of Manufacturing Management, 2nd (ed.), Irwin/McGraw Hill, New York, NY.
Jewell, W. S. (1967), “A Simple Proof of L = λW,” Operations Research, 15, (6) 1109–1116.
Kleinrock, L. (1975) Queueing Systems, Volume I: Theory, A Wiley-Interscience Publication, New York.
Kleinrock, L. (1976) Queueing Systems, Volume II: Computer Applications,, A Wiley-Interscience Publication, New York.
Little, J. D. C. (1961) “A Proof of the Queuing Formula: L = λW,” Operations Research, 9, (3) 383–387.
Little, J. D. C. (1992) “Are there ‘Laws' of Manufacturing,” Manufacturing Systems: Foundations of World-Class Practice, edited by J. A. Heim and W. D. Compton, National Academy Press, Washington, D.C., 180–188.
Morse, P. M. (1958) Queues, Inventories and Maintenance, Publications in Operations Research No. 1, John Wiley, New York.
Stidham, S., Jr. (1974) “A Last Word on L = λW,” Operations Research, 22, (2) 417–421.
Stidham, S., Jr. (2002) “Analysis, Design, and Control of Queueing Systems,” Operations Research, 50, (1) 197–216.
Wolff, R. W. (1989) Stochastic Modeling and the Theory of Queues, Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey.
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2008 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Little, J.D.C., Graves, S.C. (2008). Little's Law. In: Chhajed, D., Lowe, T.J. (eds) Building Intuition. International Series in Operations Research & Management Science, vol 115. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-73699-0_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-73699-0_5
Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA
Print ISBN: 978-0-387-73698-3
Online ISBN: 978-0-387-73699-0
eBook Packages: Business and EconomicsBusiness and Management (R0)