In: Statistics and Probability
Pete's Market is a
small local grocery store with only one checkout counter. Assume
that shoppers...
Pete's Market is a
small local grocery store with only one checkout counter. Assume
that shoppers arrive at the checkout lane according to a Poisson
probability distribution, with an arrival rate of 13 customers per
hour. The checkout service times follow an exponential probability
distribution, with a service rate of 20 customers per hour. The
manager’s service goal is to limit the waiting time prior to
beginning the checkout process to no more than five minutes. Also
the manager of Pete's Market wants to consider one of the following
alternatives for improving service. Calculate the value of
Wq for each alternative.
- Hire a second person to bag the groceries while the cash
register operator is entering the cost data and collecting money
from the customer. With this improved single-server operation, the
service rate could be increased to 29 customers per hour. Round
your answer to three decimal places. Do not round intermediate
calculations
- Hire a second person to operate a second checkout counter. The
two-server operation would have a service rate of 20 customers per
hour for each server. Note: Use P0
values from Table 11.4 to answer this question. Round your answer
to three decimal places. Do not round intermediate
calculations.