ÉCOLE DE GESTION TELFER SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT

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ADM 3305 – INDIVIDUAL ASSIGNMENT 2

Due date: Friday, October 15 at 11:59 pm (Brightspace).

Instructions:

• Whenever you present a model, please make sure that: 1) all model components are clearly
defined in words before being used; 2) a readable printout of the model, its solution, and
any useful additional information are included whenever you use a computer. It may be a
good idea to annotate this printout, so as to make it easier to understand. Also, when solving
a numerical example, present and explain the solutions in the same terms the problem is
stated. Use tables or graphical representations when appropriate and interpret solutions in
managerial terms.
• The data for this homework assignment can be found in the file demand.xlsx.
• Your answers must be uploaded to Brightspace in one pdf file. You may upload several
pdf files, but only the most recent submission prior to the deadline will be graded. This single
pdf file must include all your answers, including screen shots of your model(s). You must
start each question on a different page and answer the questions in order. In addition
to the pdf file with your answers, you must upload your implementation file(s) when
applicable. Students who fail to follow these instructions will be penalized with 10% of the
marks (for example, if the assignment is marked out of 50, the penalty will be 5 marks).
• Remember to include your integrity statement. Assignments submitted without a signed
integrity statement will not be graded.

Question 1 – Queueing Theory

A retail store has two service desks, one at each entrance of the store. Customers arrive at
each service desk at an average of one every 6 minutes. The service rate at each service desk
is 15 customers per hour. Assume Poisson arrivals and exponential service times. In the long
run,

a) How many customers, on average, are waiting in line in front of each service desk?
b) How much time does a customer spend at the service desk (waiting plus service time)?

The store is considering consolidating its two service desks into one location with a single
queue, staffed by two clerks. The clerks will continue to work at the same individual speed
of 15 customers per hour.

c) How many customers, on average, are waiting in line?

d) How much time does a customer spend at the service desk (waiting plus service time)?
e) Based on your results above, do you think the store should consolidate the service desks?
Explain your answer.

Hint: This is queueing theory exercise. Use the corresponding version of the PK formula
discussed in class.

Question 2 – Simulation by Hand

A small taxi company operates one vehicle during the 7:00 am to 12:00 pm period. Currently,
the company is considering the addition of a second vehicle to the fleet. The demand for taxis
can be characterized by the following probability distribution:

Time between Calls (minutes) 15 20 25 30 35

Probability 0.14 0.22 0.43 0.17 0.04

The distribution of the time to complete a trip, on the other hand, is as follows:

Service Time (minutes) 5 15 25 35 45

Probability 0.12 0.35 0.43 0.06 0.04

Simulate, manually, one individual day of operation of the current system and of the system
with an additional vehicle. For each system configuration,

a) Plot a graph showing the evolution of the number of customers in the system (waiting
and in the taxi) over this period. Use the Uniform(0,1) random numbers in the last page.
The following table can help you with the computations.

Arrival State of Wait Start End Time in

Customer
Time System Time Service Service System
1
2
3
4
…

b) Use your computations and graph from part a) to estimate some of the usual measures
of performance for this system: average customer waiting time, maximum customer
waiting time, time-average number of customers waiting, maximum number of
customers waiting, average flow time, and taxi utilization.

Compare the two systems with respect to the measures listed above and summarize your
results in no more than two paragraphs.
Question 3 – Modelling with Arena

Passengers arrive at an airport terminal one at a time through the front door from curbside
ground transportation with interarrival times distributed exponentially with mean 0.5
minutes. Of these passengers, 35% go left to an old-fashioned manual check-in counter, 50%
go right to a newfangled automated check-in counter, and the remaining 15% do not need to
check in at all and proceed directly from the front door to security. It takes the latter type of
passengers between 3 and 5 minutes, uniformly distributed, to make the walk from the front
door to the entrance to the security area. The other two passenger types move instantly from
their arrival to the manual or automated check-in counter (i.e., assume the walk takes them
a negligible amount of time).

There are two agents at the manual check-in station, fed by a single First-In, First-Out (FIFO)
queue; manual check-in times follow a triangular distribution between 1 and 5 minutes with
a mode of 2 minutes. After manual check-in, passengers walk to the security area, a stroll
that takes them between 2.0 and 5.8 minutes, uniformly distributed.

The automated check-in has two stations (a station consists of a touch-screen kiosk and an
employee to take checked bags; view a kiosk-employee pair as a single unified unit, that is,
the kiosk and its employee cannot be separated), fed by a single FIFO queue, and check-in
times are triangularly distributed between 0.5 and 1.5 with a mode of 1. After automated
check-in, passengers walk to the security area, taking between 1 and 3 minutes, uniformly
distributed, to get there.

All passengers eventually get to the security area, where there are six stations fed by a single
FIFO queue; security-check times are triangularly distributed between 1 and 6 with a mode
of 2 (this distribution captures all the possibilities there, like x-ray of carry-ons, walking
through the metal detector, bag search, body wanding, shoes off, laptop checking, etc.). Once
through the security check, passengers head to their gates and are no longer in the system.
Assume everybody passes the security check, though it takes some longer than others to do
so.

a) Build the Arena model corresponding to this system.

b) Simulate the system for one replication of a 10-hour period and report the average queue
lengths, average times in queue, resource utilizations, and average total time in the
system for each type of passenger and all passengers combined.
c) Animate your model by including passengers walking to security (use a different picture
or color for each type of passenger) and create a plot to track the length of each of the
three queues over the simulation period (either three separate plots or three curves in a
single plot).
Uniform(0,1) random numbers

Arrival Service
Process Process
0.5869 0.0741
0.2853 0.2281
0.6724 0.9944
0.0788 0.9362
0.0159 0.2952
0.9495 0.8167
0.1131 0.5371
0.8791 0.4974
0.6294 0.5182
0.2783 0.7495
0.1785 0.8375
0.1797 0.9075
0.1998 0.4001
0.9359 0.8634
0.0988 0.6248
0.8611 0.4925
0.3693 0.0727
0.5062 0.3358
0.6527 0.6090
0.2203 0.5082
0.0473 0.1585
0.7819 0.2461
0.6514 0.4259
0.7718 0.5284
0.0935 0.5876
0.3759 0.2863
0.3178 0.6421
0.6704 0.2706
0.8684 0.6130
0.0710 0.1227