An appointment-based service center with guaranteed service

Customers are scheduled to arrive at periodic scheduling intervals to receive service from a single server system. A customer must start receiving service with a given departure interval; if this is not the case, the system will pay a penalty and/or transfer the customer to another facility at the system's cost. A complete transient and steady-state analysis of the system is given, the optimal scheduling and departure intervals are determined, and the virtual work in the system is analyzed.