What is the primary trade-off that operations managers must recognize when analyzing queuing costs?
Explanation
This question addresses the fundamental economic principle of queuing theory, which is the trade-off between the cost of service capacity and the cost incurred from customers waiting.
Other questions
Which of the following is NOT one of the three major characteristics of the input source that generates arrivals for a service system?
In queuing theory, what term describes customers who enter a queue but then become impatient and leave without completing their transaction?
A car mechanic can install mufflers at an average rate of 3 per hour. Customers seeking this service arrive at an average rate of 2 per hour. What is the average time a customer spends in the system, including both waiting and service time?
For the single-server muffler shop with an arrival rate of 2 cars per hour and a service rate of 3 cars per hour, what is the probability that there are zero cars in the system?
A hardware store manager wants to test an inventory policy of ordering 10 drills with a reorder point of 5. On a particular day, the beginning inventory is 6 drills, and the random number for demand is 57. Based on the provided data, what is the ending inventory for that day?
Which queuing model is most appropriate for a system with Poisson arrivals, a single service channel, and a service time that is the same for every customer, such as in an automated car wash?
At a recycling center, trucks arrive randomly at an average rate of 8 per hour. A new automated compactor can process these trucks at a constant rate of 12 per hour. What is the average waiting time in the queue for a truck?
Which of the following situations would be best modeled using a finite-population queuing model?
The U.S. Post Office has customers arriving at an average rate of 20 per hour. On average, there are 5 people waiting in line to be served. Using Little's Law, how long does the average customer wait in line?
A bank is deciding how many teller windows to open. Customer arrivals are 18 per hour, and a teller can serve 20 customers per hour. Using the waiting-line table (Table D.5), what is the approximate average number of customers in line (Lq) if two windows are open?
A company employs one brick loader who can load trucks at a rate of 4 per hour. Trucks arrive at a rate of 3 per hour. What is the utilization rate of the loader?
What is the primary advantage of using simulation over conventional analytical models in operations management?
A queuing system where customers are served by a single station is known as what type of system?
A single-server brick loading system has a truck arrival rate of 3 per hour and a service rate of 4 per hour. The company decides to hire a second loader, creating a two-person crew that doubles the service rate to 8 per hour at the single loading platform. What is the new average number of trucks in the system (Ls)?
Which probability distribution is commonly used to describe the number of arrivals per unit of time in many queuing problems?
What is the first step in the five-step Monte Carlo simulation method?
In the Golden Muffler shop example where the arrival rate is 2 cars per hour and the service rate is 3 cars per hour, what is the probability that there are more than 3 cars in the system?
In an M/M/S model, a shop has an arrival rate of 2 cars per hour and hires two mechanics, each of whom can service cars at a rate of 3 per hour. What is the probability of zero cars in the system (P0)?
A mechanic at a muffler shop is paid 11 dollars per hour. The shop owner estimates that the cost of customer waiting time (in terms of lost goodwill) is 15 dollars per hour. The average car waits 2/3 of an hour in the queue, and there are approximately 16 cars serviced per 8-hour day. What is the total daily expected cost of this waiting line system?
A manager is analyzing a queue and finds the average number of customers in the queue (Lq) is 1.33 cars and the average number in the system (Ls) is 2 cars. The arrival rate is 2 cars per hour. What is the average service time?