Analysis and applications of coupled queues

A coupled queueing system consists of multiple queues, served by a single server such that in every queue a customer leaves upon service completion, and such that service is blocked if any of the queues is empty. Coupled queueing systems are frequently encountered in various contexts including assembly, production and communication networks. While conceptually simple, the analysis and performance of coupled queues is a challenging task, which draws upon different analysis methodologies. We focus on several numerical techniques and develop a novel Taylor series expansion.