C.5 Exercises

For the exercises in this section, first start with specifying the appropriate queueing models needed to solve the exercise using Kendall’s notation. Then, specify the parameters of the model, e.g. \(\lambda_{e}\), \(\mu\), \(c\), size of the population, size of the system, etc. Specify how and what you would compute to solve the problem. Be as specific as possible by specifying the equations needed. Then, compute the quantities if requested. You might also try to use to solve the problems via simulation.

Exercise C.1 True or False: In a queueing system with random arrivals and random service times, the performance will be best if the arrival rate is equal to the service rate because then there will not be any queueing.
Exercise C.2 The Burger Joint in the UA food court uses an average of 10,000 pounds of potatoes per week. The average number of pounds of potatoes on hand is 5,000. On average, how long do potatoes stay in the restaurant before being used? What queuing concept is use to solve this problem?
Exercise C.3 Consider a single pump gas station where the arrival process is Poisson with a mean time between arrivals of 10 minutes. The service time is exponentially distributed with a mean of 6 minutes. Specify the appropriate queueing model needed to solve the problem using Kendall’s notation. Specify the parameters of the model and what you would compute to solve the problem. Be as specific as possible by specifying the equation needed. Then, compute the desired quantities.

  1. What is the probability that you have to wait for service?

  2. What is the mean number of customer at the station?

  3. What is the expected time waiting in the line to get a pump?

Exercise C.4 Suppose an operator has been assigned to the responsibility of maintaining 3 machines. For each machine the probability distribution of the running time before a breakdown is exponentially distributed with a mean of 9 hours. The repair time also has an exponential distribution with a mean of 2 hours. Specify the appropriate queueing model needed to solve the problem using Kendall’s notation. Specify the parameters of the model and what you would compute to solve the problem. Be as specific as possible by specifying the equation needed. Then, compute the desired quantities.

  1. What is the probability that the operator is idle?

  2. What is the expected number of machines that are running?

  3. What is the expected number of machines that are not running?

Exercise C.5 SuperFastCopy wants to install self-service copiers, but cannot decide whether to put in one or two machines. They predict that arrivals will be Poisson with a rate of 30 per hour, and the time spent copying is exponentially distributed with a mean of 1.75 minutes. Because the shop is small they want the probability of 5 or more customers in the shop to be small, say less than 7%. Make a recommendation based on queueing theory to SuperFastCopy.

Exercise C.6 Each airline passenger and his or her carry-on baggage must be checked at the security checkpoint. Suppose XNA averages 10 passengers per minute with exponential inter-arrival times. To screen passengers, the airport must have a metal detector and baggage X-ray machines. Whenever a checkpoint is in operation, two employees are required (one operates the metal detector, one operates the X-ray machine). The passenger goes through the metal detector and simultaneously their bag goes through the X-ray machine. A checkpoint can check an average of 12 passengers per minute according to an exponential distribution.

What is the probability that a passenger will have to wait before being screened? On average, how many passengers are waiting in line to enter the checkpoint? On average, how long will a passenger spend at the checkpoint?
Exercise C.7 Two machines are being considered for processing a job within a factory. The first machine has an exponentially distributed processing time with a mean of 10 minutes. For the second machine the vendor has indicated that the mean processing time is 10 minutes but with a standard deviation of 6 minutes. Using queueing theory, which machine is better in terms of the average waiting time of the jobs?
Exercise C.8 Customers arrive at a one-window drive in bank according to a Poisson distribution with a mean of 10 per hour. The service time for each customer is exponentially distributed with a mean of 5 minutes. There are 3 spaces in front of the window including that for the car being served. Other arriving cars can wait outside these 3 spaces. Specify the appropriate queueing model needed to solve the problem using Kendall’s notation. Specify the parameters of the model and what you would compute to solve the problem. Be as specific as possible by specifying the equation needed. Then, compute the desired quantities.

  1. What is the probability that an arriving customer can enter one of the 3 spaces in front of the window?

  2. What is the probability that an arriving customer will have to wait outside the 3 spaces?

  3. How long is an arriving customer expected to wait before starting service?

  4. How many spaces should be provided in front of the window so that an arriving customer can wait in front of the window at least 20% of the time? In other words, the probability of at least one open space must be greater than 20%.

Exercise C.9 Joe Rose is a student at Big State U. He does odd jobs to supplement his income. Job requests come every 5 days on the average, but the time between requests is exponentially distributed. The time for completing a job is also exponentially distributed with a mean of 4 days.

  1. What would you compute to find the chance that Joe will not have any jobs to work on?

  2. What would you compute to find the average value of the waiting jobs if Joe gets about $25 per job?

Exercise C.10 The manager of a bank must determine how many tellers should be available. For every minute a customer stands in line, the manager believes that a delay cost of 5 cents is incurred. An average of 15 customers per hour arrive at the bank. On the average, it takes a teller 6 minutes to complete the customer’s transaction. It costs the bank $9 per hour to have a teller available. Inter-arrival and service times can be assumed to be exponentially distributed.

What is the minimum number of tellers that should be available in order for the system to be stable (i.e. not have an infinite queue)? If the system has 3 tellers, what is the probability that there will be no one in the bank? What is the expected total cost of the system per hour, when there are 2 tellers?

Exercise C.11 You have been hired to analyze the needs for loading dock facilities at a trucking terminal. The present terminal has 4 docks on the main building. Any trucks that arrive when all docks are full are assigned to a secondary terminal, which a short distance away from the main terminal. Assume that the arrival process is Poisson with a rate of 5 trucks each hour. There is no available space at the main terminal for trucks to wait for a dock. At the present time nearly 50% of the arriving trucks are diverted to the secondary terminal. The average service time per truck is two hours on the main terminal and 3 hours on the secondary terminal, both exponentially distributed. Two proposals are being considered. The first proposal is to expand the main terminal by adding docks so that at least 80% of the arriving trucks can be served there with the remainder being diverted to the secondary terminal. The second proposal is to expand the space that can accommodate up to 8 trucks. Then, only when the holding area is full will the trucks be diverted to secondary terminal.

What queuing model should you use to analyze the first proposal? State the model and its parameters. State what you would do to determine the required number of docks so that at least 80% of the arriving trucks can be served for the first proposal. Note you do not have to compute anything. What model should you use to analyze the 2nd proposal? State the model and its parameters.
Exercise C.12 Sly’s convenience store operates a two-pump gas station. The lane leading to the pumps can house at most five cars, including those being serviced. Arriving cars go elsewhere if the lane is full. The distribution of the arriving cars is Poisson with a mean of 20 per hour. The time to fill up and pay for the purchase is exponentially distributed with a mean of 6 minutes.

  1. Specify using queueing notation, exactly what you would compute to find the percentage of cars that will seek business elsewhere?

  2. Specify using queueing notation, exactly what you would compute to find the utilization of the pumps?

Exercise C.13 An airline ticket office has two ticket agents answering incoming phone calls for flight reservations. In addition, two callers can be put on hold until one of the agents is available to take the call. If all four phone lines (both agent lines and the hold lines) are busy, a potential customer gets a busy signal, and it is assumed that the call goes to another ticket office and that the business is lost. The calls and attempted calls occur randomly (i.e. according to Poisson process) at a mean rate of 15 per hour. The length of a telephone conversation has an exponential distribution with a mean of 4 minutes.

  1. Specify using queueing notation, exactly what you would compute to find the probability of losing a potential customer?

  2. What would you compute to find the probability that an arriving phone call will not start service immediately but will be able to wait on a hold line?

Exercise C.14 SuperFastCopy has three identical copying machines. When a machine is being used, the time until it breaks down has an exponential distribution with a mean of 2 weeks. A repair person is kept on call to repair the machines. The repair time for a machine has an exponential distribution with a mean of 0.5 week. The downtime cost for each copying machine is $100 per week.

  1. Let the state of the system be the number of machines not working, Construct a state transition diagram for this queueing system.

  2. Write an expression using queueing performance measures to compute the expected downtime cost per week.

Exercise C.15 NWH Cardiac Care Unit (CCU) has 5 beds, which are virtually always occupied by patients who have just undergone major heart surgery. Two registered nurses (RNs) are on duty in the CCU in each of the three 8 hour shifts. About every two hours following an exponential distribution, one of the patients requires a nurse’s attention. The RN will then spend an average of 30 minutes (exponentially distributed) assisting the patient and updating medical records regarding the problem and care provided.

  1. What would you compute to find the average number of patients being attended by the nurses?

  2. What would you compute to fine the average time that a patient spends waiting for one of the nurses to arrive?

Exercise C.16 HJ Bunt, Transport Company maintains a large fleet of refrigerated trailers. For the purposes of this problem assume that the number of refrigerated trailers is conceptually infinite. The trailers require service on an irregular basis in the company owned and operated service shop. Assume that the arrival of trailers to the shop is approximated by a Poisson distribution with a mean rate of 3 per week. The length of time needed for servicing a trailer varies according to an exponential distribution with a mean service time of one-half week per trailer. The current policy is to utilize a centralized contracted outsourced service center whenever more than two trailers are in the company shop, so that, at most one trailer is allowed to wait. Assume that there is currently one 1 mechanic in the company shop.

Specify using Kendall’s notation the correct queueing model for this situation including the appropriate parameters. What would you compute to determine the expected number of repairs that are outsourced per week?
Exercise C.17 Rick is a manager of a small barber shop at Big State U. He hires one barber. Rick is also a barber and he works only when he has more than one customer in the shop. Customers arrive randomly at a rate of 3 per hour. Rick takes 15 minutes on the average for a hair cut, but his employee takes 10 minutes. Assume that the cutting time distributions are exponentially distributed. Assume that there are only 2 chairs available with no waiting room in the shop.

  1. Let the state of the system be the number of customers in the shop, Construct a state transition diagram for this queueing system.

  2. What is the probability that a customer is turned away?

  3. What is the probability that the barber shop is idle?

  4. What is the steady-state mean number of customers in the shop?

Exercise C.18 Using the supplied data set, draw the sample path for the state variable, \(N(t)\). Give a formula for estimating the time average number in the system, \(N(t)\), and then use the data to compute the time average number in the system over the range from 0 to 25. Assume that the value of \(N(t\) is the value of the state variable just after time \(t\).

\(t\) 0 2 4 5 7 10 12 15 20
\(N(t)\) 0 1 0 1 2 3 2 1 0

  1. Give a formula for estimating the time average number in the system, \(N(t)\), and then use the data to compute the time average number in the system over the range from 0 to 25.

  2. Give a formula for estimating the mean rate of arrivals over the interval from 0 to 25 and then use the data to estimate the mean arrival rate.

  3. Estimate the average time in the system (waiting and in service) for the customers indicated in the diagram.

  4. What queueing formula relationship is used in this problem?