Queuing and Process Simulation

Examine the simulation results to get answers to these questions:

What is the operation’s total service level? How many Fast employees are refusing to work?

Overall operational service level: 86%

Balking 21.53 employees

How long do employees have to wait to be served? Consider the mean cycle times of the Waiting Line buffer and the two Decision Points—employees wait at all three locations.

Waiting Periods:

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10.74 minutes spent in line

1.58 minutes for Decision Point 1

1.54 minutes for Decision Point 2

Total time spent waiting: 13.86 minutes

How much time do the two servers spend on Value dinners on average?

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?

Average % of time the two servers working of Value meals: 17%

Comparison: It is less than the projected 30% rate for employees wanting Value meals.

It is reasonable to think that the current configuration could handle a higher proportion of employees choosing Value meals. Fast should consider promoting Value meals more in different ways since the number of customers who balked was very high.

Copy the entire Model View and Results pages and paste them into a separate workbook that you will submit.

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:

What is the overall service level of the operation? How many Fast employees are balking?

Overall service level of operation: 89%

Balking employees: 16.40

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.

Waiting times for service:-

Waiting Line: 9.37 minutes

Decision Point 1: 1.42 minutes

Decision Point 2: 1.46 Minutes

Total waiting time: 12.25 minutes

Were the changes in overall service level and employee waiting time from parts 1 and 2, a & b statistically significant?

The changes in the overall service level and employee waiting time were statistically significant at the 0.05 level of confidence since the one tailed probability for the service level was 0.04 while that for the waiting times was 0.01, which are lower than the 0.05 confidence level.

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?

Average % time two servers are working on Value meals: 24%

Comparison to 40% forecast rate: The average percent time that the two servers are working on the Value meals is 24% which is less than the forecasted 40% rate of employees choosing Value meals.

It is reasonable to think the current configuration could handle a higher proportion of employees choosing Value meals.

Should Fast consider additional changes to improve the performance of Fast Food.

Fast should consider implementing additional changes so that the performance of Fast Food can be improved. The main reason for the need for more improvements is the fact that the number of customers who balked after the implementation of the marketing strategies to raise the demand for Value meals to increase to 40% is still almost as high as it was when the demand was 30%.

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:

What is the service level of the operation? How many Fast employees are balking?

Overall service level of operation: 100%

Balking employees: 0

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.

Waiting times for service:-

Waiting Line: 0.75 minutes

Decision Point 1: 1.38 minutes

Decision Point 2: 1.19 minutes

Decision Point 3: 1.12 minutes

Total Waiting Time: 4.44 minutes

Were the changes in overall service level and employee waiting time from parts 2 and 3, a & b statistically significant?

The changes in the overall service level and employee waiting time were statistically significant at the 0.05 level of confidence since the one tailed probability for the service level was 0.00 while that for the waiting times was 0.00, which are much lower than the 0.05 confidence level.

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?

Average % of time the three servers are working on Value meals: 20%

Comparison: The average percent of time the three servers are working on Value meals is less than the 40% projected employees demanding Value meals.

It is very reasonable to think that the current configuration could handle a higher proportion of employees choosing Value meals.