Queueing networks are a useful class of models in many application domains, e.g., manufacturing systems, communication networks, and computer systems. Control is typically exercised over such systems by the use of scheduling policies.

However, if one ventures outside a certain special class of systems for which the steady state distribution has a product form, very little is known concerning their performance or even stability. In the first half of this survey paper, we present new theoretical developments on stability analysis and performance evaluation for queueing networks and scheduling policies. We show how one may solve problems in stability and performance analysis by solving linear programs.

In the second half, we address the problem of scheduling a class of queueing networks called re-entrant lines, which model semiconductor manufacturing plants. We propose a new class of scheduling policies based on smoothing all the flows in the system. We also report briefly from an extensive simulation study comparing the performance of the suggested scheduling policies with a range of other scheduling policies, for a variety of semiconductor manufacturing plant models.

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