M6A2 Queuing and Process Simulation- Problem 1

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M6A2 Queuing and Process Simulation- Problem 1

Fast runs an internal quick order lunch operation, Fast Food, that is like a typical fast-food restaurant. However, some employees think the Fast Food service is too slow and are still leaving the Fast campus to eat elsewhere.

To reduce the time employees spend getting their lunch at Fast Food, Fast is considering offering an enticement for employees to buy the equivalent of “value” meals which can be preprocessed and packaged. You are asked to run simulations using SimQuick of the proposed operation.

Employees enter Fast Food through a single door, wait in a single line and then proceed to one of two order kiosks. There, the employees choose a Value meal or make their Custom order. They then proceed to an order/fulfillment server assigned to that kiosk. The two servers fill the orders and the employees exit through another door when they have their order.

Assumptions:

  • Employees arrival is Poisson distributed with 75 arrivals per hour with one customer arriving at a time.
  • Given the proposed pricing, Fast forecasts 30% of employees will choose Value meals.
  • The time it takes a server to prepare a Value meal can be approximated by a normal distribution with a mean of 1.2 minutes and a standard deviation of 0.1 minutes.
  • The time it takes a server to prepare a Custom order can be approximated by a normal distribution with a mean of 2.5 minutes with a standard deviation of 0.5 minutes.
  • There is room for about 15 employees to stand in the waiting line. If the line exceeds 15, the employees will balk and be lost to an outside restaurant. Assume there is no one in line when the simulation begins and people leave the waiting line one at a time.
  • There are two kiosk/servers in the current configuration.
  • The process can be modeled as follows:

Part 1:

Download and open the SimQuick Excel file. Save it with a new name so you will always have access to the original SimQuick file.

Construct a model using SimQuick. Run 30 simulations of the critical two-hour (120 minute) lunch period.

Answer these questions by examining the Results of the simulation:

  1. What is the overall service level of the operation? How many Fast employees are balking?
  2. How long are employees waiting to get served? Hint: look at the mean cycle times of the Waiting Line buffer and the two Decision Points- employees wait in all three places.
  3. What is the average percent of time the two servers are working on Value meals? How does this compare to the forecast 30% rate for employees wanting Value meals? Is it reasonable to think the current configuration could handle a higher proportion of employees choosing Value meals? In other words, should Fast consider promoting Value meals more in some way?
  4. Copy the entire Model View and Results pages and paste them into a separate workbook that you will submit.

Note: the copied models will not run in the new workbook. To facilitate your own work on the subsequent parts, it is recommended that you save the original SimQuick file for part 1 and rename it for use for parts 2 and 3.

Part 2:

Fast believes it can entice 40% of employees to order Value meals through price promotion and more marketing. Rerun the two-hour simulation with this assumption and answer the following questions:

  1. What is the overall service level of the operation? How many Fast employees are balking?
  2. How long are employees waiting to get served? Hint: look at the mean cycle times of the Waiting Line buffer and the two Decision Points- employees wait in all three places.
  3. Were the changes in overall service level and employee waiting time from parts 1 and 2, a & b statistically significant?
  4. What is the average percent of time the two servers are working on Value meals? How does this compare to the forecast 40% rate for employees wanting Value meals? Is it reasonable to think the current configuration could handle a higher proportion of employees choosing Value meals?
  5. Should Fast consider additional changes to improve the performance of Fast Food.

Part 3:

Fast decides to add a third server and continue the Value meal promotion so 40% of employees choose a Value meal. Rerun the two-hour simulation with this assumption and answer the following questions:

  1. What is the service level of the operation? How many Fast employees are balking?
  2. How long are employees waiting to get served? Hint: look at the mean cycle times of the Waiting Line buffer and the three Decision Points- employees wait in all four places.
  3. Were the changes in overall service level and employee waiting time from parts 2 and 3, a & b statistically significant?
  4. What is the average percent of time the three servers are working on Value meals? How does this compare to the forecast 40% rate for employees wanting Value meals? Is it reasonable to think the current configuration could handle a higher proportion of employees choosing Value meals?

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