An average of 90 patrons per hour arrive at a hotel lobby(interarrival times are exponential), waiting to check in. At present, there are 5 clerks, and patrons are waiting in a singleline for the first available clerk. The average time for a clerkto service a patron is 3 minutes (exponentially distributed).Clerks earn $10 per hour, and the hotel assesses a waitingtime cost of $20 for each hour that a patron waits in line.a Compute the expected cost per hour of the currentsystem.b The hotel is considering replacing one clerk with an Automatic Clerk Machine (ACM). Management esti-mates that 20% of all patrons will use an ACM. An ACM takes an average of 1 minute to service a patron.It costs $48 per day (1 day 8 hours) to operate anACM. Should the hotel install the ACM? Assume thatall customers who are willing to use the ACM wait in asingle queue.

Practical Management Science
6th Edition
ISBN:9781337406659
Author:WINSTON, Wayne L.
Publisher:WINSTON, Wayne L.
Chapter12: Queueing Models
Section12.5: Analytic Steady-state Queueing Models
Problem 9P
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An average of 90 patrons per hour arrive at a hotel lobby
(interarrival times are exponential), waiting to check in. At

present, there are 5 clerks, and patrons are waiting in a single
line for the first available clerk. The average time for a clerk
to service a patron is 3 minutes (exponentially distributed).
Clerks earn $10 per hour, and the hotel assesses a waiting
time cost of $20 for each hour that a patron waits in line.
a Compute the expected cost per hour of the current
system.
b The hotel is considering replacing one clerk with an

Automatic Clerk Machine (ACM). Management esti-
mates that 20% of all patrons will use an ACM. An

ACM takes an average of 1 minute to service a patron.
It costs $48 per day (1 day 8 hours) to operate an
ACM. Should the hotel install the ACM? Assume that
all customers who are willing to use the ACM wait in a
single queue.

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