Little’s Law

Little’s Law is stated as:

$$L=\lambda \cdot W$$

Where:

• $L$ = average number of items in the system (inventory)
• $\lambda$ = average arrival rate of items into the system
• $W$ = average time an item spends in the system

Uses

There are many uses to Little’s Law:

• Computing average WIP inventory in a process.
• Using WIP and bottleneck capacity to compute the throughput time.