Topic: Queuing Model

Assessment: Assignment No. 1

Topic Coverage: Queuing Model:

1. The Maitland Furniture store gets an average of 50 customers per shift. The manager of Maitland wants
to calculate whether she should hire 1, 2, 3, or 4 salespeople. She has determined that average waiting
times will be 7 minutes with 1 salesperson, 4 minutes with 2 salespeople, 3 minutes with 3 salespeople,
and 2 minutes with 4 salespeople. She has estimated the cost per minute that customers wait at $1.
The cost per salesperson per shift (including benefits) is $70.

Answer:

1. Minimum total cost per shift relates to two sales people, the manager’s optimum strategy is to hire
two (2) sales people.

Number of Sales People

1 2 3 4
a. Average number of customer per shift 50 50 50 50
b. average waiting time (mins.) per customer 7 4 3 2
c. total waiting time (minutes) per shift (A X B) 350 200 150 100
d. Cost per minute of waiting time $1 $1 $1 $1
e. Value of total lost time per shift ( C X D) $350 $200 $150 $100
f. Salary Cost per shift $70 $140 $210 $280
g. Total Cost per shift (E + F) $420 $340 $360 $380

2. Marty Schatz owns and manages a chili dog and soft drink store near the campus. Although Marty can
service 30 customers per hour on the average, he only gets 20 customers per hour Because Marty
could wait on 50% more customers than actually visit his store, it doesn’t make sense to him that he
should have any waiting lines. Marty hires you to examine the situation and to determine some
characteristics of his queue. After looking into the problem, you find this to be a system. What are your
findings?

2. Solution

λ 20
L= = = 2 customers in the system on the average
μ-λ 30-20
1 1 0.1 hour (6 minutes) that the average customer spends in the total
W= = =
μ-λ 30-20 system
λ² 20²
Lq= = = 1.33 customers waiting for service in line on the average
μ(μ - λ) 30(30-20)
λ 20 1/15 hour = (4 minutes) = average waiting time of customer in the queue
Wq= = =
μ(μ - λ) 30(30-20) awaiting service
λ 20
p= = = 0.67 = percentage of the time that Marty is busy waiting on customers
μ 30
λ 0.33 = probability that there are no customers in the system
P₀= 1- = 1-0.67 =
μ (being waited on or waiting in the queue) at any given time

Probability of k or More Customers Waiting in Line and/or Being Waited On

λ
k Pn>k = ( μ ) k+1
0 0.667
1 0.444
2 0.296
3 0.198
3. Refer to Solved Problem 13-2. Marty agreed that these figures seemed to represent his approximate
business situation. You are quite surprised at the length of the lines and elicit from him an estimated
value of the customer’s waiting time (in the queue, not being waited on) at 10 cents per minute. During
the 12 hours that he is open, he gets customers. The average customer is in a queue 4 minutes, so the
total customer waiting time is The value of 960 minutes is You tell Marty that not only is 10 cents per
minute quite conservative, but he could probably save most of that $96 of customer ill will if he hired
another salesclerk. After much haggling, Marty agrees to provide you with all the chili dogs you can eat
during a week-long period in exchange for your analysis of the results of having two clerks wait on the
customers. Assuming that Marty hires one additional salesclerk whose service rate equals Marty’s rate,
complete the analysis.

3. Solution: With two cash registers open, the system becomes two channel, or m = 2. The computations yield

1
P₀= 1
n! [ 2030 ] ] +
1
2! [ 2030 ] [ 2(30)-20
2(30)
]
1
= (1)(2/3)⁰+(1)(2/3)1+(1/2)(4/9)(6/4)

= probability of no customers in the system

(20)(30)(20/30)² 20
L= [ (2-1)![(2)(30-20)]² ] 0.5+
30
= 0.75 customer in the system on the average

L 3/4 3
W= = = Hour = 2.25 minutes that the average customer spends in the total system
λ 20 80
Lq ½ 1 1 average waiting time of a customer in the queue
Wq= = = hour = minute
λ 20 240 4 itself (not being serviced)

λ 20 1
p= = = = 0.33 = utilization rate
֋μ 2(30) 3

= You now have (240 customers) X (1/240hour) = 1 hour total customer waiting time per day.
= Total cost of 60 minutes of customer waiting time is (60 minutes)($0.10 per minute) = $6
= Now you are ready to point out to Marty that the hiring of one additional clerk will save $96 – $6 = $90 of customer ill
will per 12-hour shift. Marty responds that the hiring should also reduce the number of people who look at the line and
leave as well as those who get tired of waiting in line and leave. You tell Marty that you are ready for two chili dogs, extra
hot.`

4. Vacation Inns is a chain of hotels operating in the southwestern part of the United States. The company
uses a toll-free telephone number to make reservations for any of its hotels. The average time to
handle each call is 3 minutes, and an average of 12 calls are received per hour. The probability
distribution that describes the arrivals is unknown. Over a period of time it is determined that the
average caller spends 6 minutes either on hold or receiving service. Find the average time in the
queue, the average time in the system, the average number in the queue, and the average number in
the system.

4. Solution.
The probability distributions are unknown, but we are given the average time in the system (6 minutes).

W = 6 minutes = 6/60 hour = 0.1 hour

λ = 12 per hour
μ = 60/3 = 20 per hour
Average time in queue = Wq = W-1/μ = 0.1 - 1/20 = 0.1 -0.05 = 0.05 hour
Average number in system = L = λW = 12(0.1) = 1.2 callers
Average number in queue = Lq = λWq = 12(0.05) = 0.6 callers

5. What are the components of the following systems? Draw and explain the configuration of each.
(a) barbershop
(b) car wash
(c) laundromat
(d) small grocery store

5. Answer:

Barbershop

Barbershop has a single phase system in which generally single to multiple servers (Ranging from
one to many depending on the size of the shop) are available. The arrival rate of the customer is low as
they are many options available to the customers and cutting hair is not done daily. The service time
pattern is generally first come first out ( FIFO ) basis. There is no priority scheme. There is Negative
Exponential Distribution for Service Times.

• The entities are the customers and the barbers.

• The resources are the barber chairs and the spaces available for waiting.
 The attributes of the customer entities include arrival time for that customer, the type of haircut desired,
the amount of hair.

• The operations include "wait until a barber is available", "cut customer's hair", and "clean chair and wait
for next customer".
• The system state can be described by:
o number of barbers available
o number of barber chairs available
o size of the waiting area (i.e., the arrival queue)
o time the current customers began their haircuts.
o total number of customers since the shop opened today
o total waiting time for barbers since the shop opened today

Note that state change only occurs at specific instants of time.

Car wash

It is an example of a multiphase system as the car is given for the Car wash at one station and they are
cleaned at other station and then given back to the customer at some other station. However, it has a single-
channel queuing system because everyone drops their Car for cleaning at one location and they are cleaned
and given back through one channel. Here, also services are generally provided through first in first out queue
discipline. The arrival rate is much more frequent and thus if not properly managed it ends up into long queue
waiting. The service time is random and thus random service times are described by the negative exponential
probability distribution.

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and given back through one channel. Here, also services are generally provided through first in first out queue
discipline. The arrival rate is much more frequent and thus if not properly managed it ends up into long queue
waiting. The service time is random and thus random service times are described by the negative exponential
probability distribution.

Laundromat

In Laundromat multi-channel and multiphase system is followed as there is many station as the
washing machine is available at various places and multiphase is followed. The arrival rate is very high and
the service time is random. Here, services are provided in random order (SIRO) and the waiting is average.

Remote Machine Management – Through Alpha-1, you will be able to activate your machine remotely.
Never will you have to experience the hassle of going to difference laundromat to deal with complaining
customers.

Machine Status Monitoring – The feature allow you to have clear insight on the status of the machine
whether it’s running or standby. As such, it will allow you to determine your machine run time and optimise
them accordingly.

E-payment enablement – Mobile payment through QR code have been getting its traction around the world
wide. Why miss out on the trend while it will helps to reduce your cash handling headache.

Vending Machine status – It will allow you to obtain insight on the sales on your inventory such as
detergent, softener and laundry bag. Top Up only when it’s below certain quantity will help to reduce your
inventory stockpile.

Daily or Monthly Closing Process – Obtain the first hand report on your monthly sales or even daily will
allow you to have the ability to adapt dynamic business environment.

Coin collection management and validation – Be informed whenever your coin box if reaching its maximum
capacity. This will allow you to plan and reduce the frequency to recollection and increase your work
effectiveness. Furthermore collected information will allow check and balance process for the machine run
time and cash collected.

Coin changer Monitoring – Knowing when your coin changer is running out of coins and require a top up.
Besides that, you will also have to know the amount of cash notes within the machine.

Data Analytic – Once Alpha-1 has collected sufficient information, predictive algorithm will allow better
forecast of future revenue. This will enable better planning for your team to handle the forecast.

Small grocery store

 In the small grocery store, generally single person deal with the customers. Thus, in this case single
channel queuing system. It is aso an example of singlephase system as all the dealing is done at a same station
and all the requirements are full filled. Also, the average waiting time is generally more as single person deal
with everything.

The primary function of the grocery business stays confined with purchase of goods from wholesalers and
selling it to the consumers. Apart from that there are a number of secondary operations of the grocery stores:

• Delivering goods to the consumers at their homes

• Bringing the demands of the articles that are not frequently sold, on the request of the consumers
• Competing with the other grocery stores operating in the society
• Presenting competitive price levels
• Bringing up deals and promotions to lure customers

• Charitable operations
• A complete log for sales, which include the recording of sale, printing of sale invoice and summarizing
the sales chronologically
• It records the purchases and even creates the tabular and graphical presentation of the difference between
purchases and sales
• It helps the HR department in generating the payroll, gratuity, calculation of provident fund and other
benefits
• Manages the shifts of staff
• Calculates the taxes, as per the provision of the state
• Helps in the performance of rebate and special discounts offered in any promotion or deal
• It is a Cloud VPN, which is not confined to be used within the premises of grocery store over the
computers; it can be accessed over multiple devices at a time (whether smartphones or laptops)

It creates the profiles for the consumers so that they can order anything using the dashboard of the software
and can get it delivered; moreover the profiles can be logged by the admin to learn about the details of the
consumers and their likeness, along with their chronological shopping budget