Exploring Little's Law

John D. C. Little’s Law has been used in queuing theory for over half a century. It is an elegant explanation of the relationship between average throughput, Work in Progress (WIP), and cycle time. In a stable environment, it gives us a good understanding of the performance of the system which can be used for the design of our system and forecasting.

People often wonder how to go about setting WIP limits. Can Little’s Law help us with our system design? We’ll work through an example from the XIT case study to demonstrate some design considerations.

Little’s Law has also been used for forecasting using historic throughput as a predictor of future performance. But where are the estimates? Certainly, size must matter. But does it? In this workshop, we explore Little’s Law through theory and the experience of simulations. Each attendee will come away with a better understanding of Little’s Law and the core assumptions necessary for it to be applicable and useful in forecasting. Through the simulation, you will experience why the estimation of individual items is often not necessary in an environment where Little’s Law applies.