  We analyze a network of tandem polling queues with two stations operating
under synchronized polling (SP) and out-of-sync polling (OP) strategies, and
with nonzero setups. We conduct an exact analysis using a decomposition
approach to compare the performance in terms of throughput and mean waiting
times to investigate when one strategy might be preferred over the other. We
also numerically investigate the condition for network stability operating
under the two strategies and show that polling network is unstable when there
is bottleneck at downstream stations. We find that the SP strategy outperforms
the OP strategy in case of product and station symmetric networks while under
certain settings of product and station asymmetry, OP strategy outperforms the
SP strategy.
