Question

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 15 customers per hour. The checkout service times follow an exponential probability distribution, with a service rate of 25 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 32 customers per hour. Round your answer to three decimal places. Do not round intermediate calculations.

Wq = _____ minutes

Hire a second person to operate a second checkout counter. The two-server operation would have a service rate of 25 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.

Wq = _____ minutes

What alternative would you recommend? Justify your recommendation.

Recommend one checkout counter with two employees .

The two counter system has better service but costs more .

Answer 1