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MBA 334: Operations Research Queuing Theory Applications Practice problems for class room discussion 1. A Branch of Punjab National Bank has only one computer typist. Since the typing work varies in length (number pages to be typed), the typing rate is randomly distributed approximating a Poisson distribution with mean service rate of 8 letters per hour. The letters arrive at a rate of 5 per hour during the entire 8 hour work day. How many letters at any given point of time will be waiting in the queue before the typist starts typing them? What is the average waiting time to get a letter typed? If the typist is valued at Rs.100 per hour, determine average idle time cost of the typewriter per day. 2. To support National Heart Week, the Heart Association plans to install a free blood pressure testing booth in El Con Mall for the week. Previous experience indicates that, on the average, 10 persons per hour request a test. Assume arrivals are Poisson from an infinite population. Blood pressure measurements can be made at a constant time of five minutes each. Determine (a) What the average number of persons in line will be, (b) The average number of persons in the system, (c) The average amount of time a person can expect to spend in line, (d) On average, how much time will it take to measure a person's blood pressure, including waiting time. Additionally, on weekends, the arrival rate can be expected to increase to nearly 12 per hour. (e) What effect will this have on the number in the waiting line? A grocery store has a single checkout stand with a full time cashier. Customers arrive randomly at the stand at a mean rate of 30 per hour. The service time distribution exponential with a mean of 1.5 minutes. This situation has resulted in occasional long lines and complaints from customers. Therefore, because there is no room for a second checkout stand, the manager is considering the alternative of hiring another person to help the cashier in the same checkout stand. It is estimated that with this change, the expected time to process a customer is 1 minute with the service time distribution being still exponential. Consider the current situation (only one cashier in the checkout stand). Compute the following system performance measures. a. Number of customers at the checkout stand. b. Number of customers waiting for service in the checkout stand. c. Average waiting time of a customer to complete the service. d. Average waiting time of a customer waiting in the queue. e. Probability that there are less than or equal to two customers in the checkout stand. [M/M/S Application] The manager proposes following service standard: Chance that a customer waits for at least 5 minutes before the beginning of the service to less than 5%. Conduct a queuing analysis to determine whether the above standard is achieved by the new proposal to have one more person help the cashier in the checkout stand. Further compare the system performance measures you have computed in Part 1 of the question above (a to f) with the same for the new proposal. Using this comparison, develop a brief business report explaining whether (and how) the new proposal is better or worse than the existing system. 4. At the photo-copying centre (with only one machine) 10 jobs arrive every hour, and the average time for each job takes 5 minutes. Jobs are taken up in a FIFO manner. a. What is the chance that a job will be taken up as soon as it reaches the centre? b. You go to the centre with a job at 3pm. When are you likely to come out of the centre after completion of the job? c. You have just come to the centre for photo-copying a 40 page manuscript. What is the chance that three people will be waiting at the centre? d. At any given point in time how many people would be expected to be waiting for photocopying? The bank ATM is occupied only 1/4 of time. A person, wanting to be served by the ATM, has to wait on an average for 2 minutes, in the lobby just outside the ATM. a. What would be the average gap in time between two consecutive arrivals of people at the ATM? b. Mr. Detler arrived at the ATM at 2pm. When is he expected to leave the ATM after his transaction is over?

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