UNIVERSITY OF BOTSWANA

DEPARTMENT OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERING

IMB 515: Operations Research II

TEST 2 SOLUTIONS

Question 1

a) With regards to queuing models, briefly explain any four (4) assumptions of the pre-emptive
priority model [8]

- The lowest priority customer being served is preempted (ejected back into the queue)
whenever a higher priority customer enters the queuing system.
- For priority class i (i = 1, 2… n), the inter-arrival times of the customers in that class have an
exponential distribution with a mean of 1/λi.
- All service times have an exponential distribution with a mean of 1/µ, regardless of the
priority class involved.
- The queuing system has a single server.

b) Explain any three (3) strengths of the Monte Carlo simulation problem solving technique over
analytical methods. [6]

- It is very flexible. There is virtually no limit to the analysis.

Question 2

There are two workers competing for a job. Peter claims an average service time which is faster
than John’s, but John claims to be more consistent, if not as fast. The arrivals occur according to
a Poisson process at a rate of λ = 2 per hour (1/30 per minute). Peter’s statistics are an average
service time of 24 minutes with a standard deviation of 20 minutes. John’s service statistics are
an average service time of 25 minutes, but a standard deviation of only 2 minutes. If the average
length of the queue is the criterion for hiring, which worker should be hired? [12]

Solution
For Peter,
 = 1/30 (per min),

 = 24 (min),
  =  / 24/30    
  
  20 = 400(min )
  
L = { (1+20 x  )} / {2 (1 – 0.8)}
q

= 2.711 (customers)

For John,
 = 1/30 (per min),

 = 25 (min),
 =  / 25/30    
  
  2 = 4(min )
  
L = { (1+2 x  )} / {2 (1 – 0.83)}
q

= 2.097 (customers)

Although working faster on the average, Peter’s greater service variability results in an
average queue length about 30% greater than John’s. On the other hand, the proportion of
arrivals who would find Peter idle and thus experience no delay is P = 1 -  = 1 / 5 = 20%,
0
while the proportion who would find John idle and thus experience no delay is P = 1 -  =
0
1 / 6 = 16.7%. On the basis of average queue length, Lq, John wins.

Question 3

(a) A queuing system has two servers whose service times are independent random variables with an
exponential distribution with a mean of 15 minutes. Customer X arrives when both servers are
idle. Five minutes later, customer Y arrives and customer X still is being served. Another 10
minutes later, customer Z arrives and both customer X and Y are still being served. No other
customer arrived during this 15-minute interval.

(i) What is the probability that customer X will complete service before customer Y? Explain
your answer. [5]
By the lack-of-memory property of the exponential distribution, when customer Y arrives,
the remaining time until customer X completes service has the same distribution as the
 service time for customer Y, so they are equally likely to finish first. Thus the probability
that customer X will complete service before customer Y is 0.5.

(ii) What is the probability that customer Z will complete service before customer X?
Explain your answer. [5]
Customer Z cannot begin service until either customer X or customer Y completes service.
Given that customer Y completes service first, which has probability of 0.5 from (i), then the
reasoning of part (i) implies that the probability that customer Z completes service before
customer X is 0.5. Therefore the unconditional probability that customer Z will complete
service before customer X is 0.5x0.5 = 0.25.

Question 4

(a) OR2 Bank always has two tellers on duty. Customers arrive to receive service from a teller at a
mean rate of 40 per hour. A teller requires an average of 2 minutes to serve a customer. When
both tellers are busy, an arriving customer joins a single line to wait for service. Experience has
shown that customers wait in line an average of 1 minute before service begins. Determine the
following measures of performance:

(i) Expected waiting time in the system for an individual customer, W [3]
W = Wq + 1/μ = 1 +1/30 = 1.033
(ii) Expected number of customers in the queue, Lq [3]
Lq = λWq = 40x0.01667 = 0.6668
(iii) Utilization factor,ρ [3]
ρ = λ/sμ = 40/(2x30) = 0.6667

FORMULA SHEET
Steady-state parameters of the M/G/1 queue

   /  , P0  1  
 2 (1   2  2 )  2 (1   2  2 )
L , LQ 
2(1   ) 2(1   )
 (1 /  2   2 )
1  (1 /  2   2 )
w  , wQ 
 2(1   ) 2(1   )
2 2 2
LQ  
2(1   ) 2(1   )