While studying a production system using simulation models, it is important to mimic the arrival of jobs to a production system. The exponential distribution is appropriate for events that recur randomly over time including jobs arriving in a system. A key property of the exponential distribution is that it is memoryless, that is the current time has no effect on future outcomes. For instance, if machine failure was exponentially distributed, the length of time between machine failures has the same distribution no matter how long the machine has been running. The mean of the exponential distribution is equal to its standard deviation, reflecting a relatively high variance, and means that the exponential distribution can be fully described by one parameter (the mean). The exponential distribution is commonly observed in the distribution of time between arrivals in waiting line systems. The existence of exponentially distributed times should not be assumed, but should be tested by...
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© 2000 Kluwer Academic Publishers
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(2000). EXPONENTIAL ARRIVALS . In: Swamidass, P.M. (eds) Encyclopedia of Production and Manufacturing Management. Springer, Boston, MA . https://doi.org/10.1007/1-4020-0612-8_308
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/1-4020-0612-8_308
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