In: Statistics and Probability
Simulation with Arena
Five identical machines operate independently in a small shop. Each machine is up (that is, works) for between 7 and 10 hours (uniformly distributed) and then breaks down. There are two repair technicians available, and it takes one technician between 1 and 4 hours (uniformly distributed) to fi x a machine; only one technician can be assigned to work on a broken machine even if the other technician is idle. If more than two machines are broken down at a given time, they form a (virtual) FIFO “repair” queue and wait for the fi rst available technician. A technician works on a broken machine until it is fi xed, regardless of what else is happening in the system. All uptimes and downtimes are independent of each other. Starting with all machines at the beginning of an “up” time, simulate this for 160 hours and observe the time-average number of machines that are down (in repair or in queue for repair), as well as the utilization of the repair technicians as a group; put your results in a Text box in your model. Animate the machines when they’re either undergoing repair or in queue for a repair technician, and plot the total number of machines down (in repair plus in queue) over time. (HINT: Think of the machines as “customers” and the repair technicians as “servers” and note that there are always fi ve machines fl oating around in the model and they never leave.)
Answer: