SIMULATION OF BUSINESS SYSTEMS R. YOOGALINGAM
SIMULATION OF BUSINESS SYSTEMS R. YOOGALINGAM
Hello, dear friend, you can consult us at any time if you have any questions, add WeChat: THEend8_
SIMULATION OF BUSINESS SYSTEMS R. YOOGALINGAM
ASSIGNMENT 2
DUE:SEE BRIGHTSPACE
INSTRUCTIONS:
• Assignments should be done individually
• Submit your Arena model(s) & analysis in Brightspace
➢ Click ‘Assignments’
➢ Click on the action link for Assignment 2
➢ Click ‘Add Attachment’ and upload the *.doe file(s) containing your models and all Word/Excel
files with your answers
➢ Click ‘Submit’
➢ Please keep a backup copy of your work
PROBLEM:
Consider a popular coffee chain that has decided to introduce warm sandwiches and pastries to its menu.
The current system can be described as follows. Customers join a FCFS queue to place their order and then
proceed to the next counter to collect their completed order. Coffee customers can be divided into two types:
1) Those that order a Regular coffee. These customers have an arrival pattern that follows an
exponential distribution with a mean of 2 minutes and the processing time for their order follows
a uniform distribution with parameter values equal to 0.5 and 1 minute.
2) Those that order a Specialty coffee. Their arrival pattern follows an exponential distribution with
a mean of 4 minutes and the processing time for their order follows a triangular distribution with
parameter values equal to 2, 3, and 4 minutes.
3) The proposed system would allow customers to also purchase a sandwich/pastry with their coffee.
The process involves the employee selecting the item the customer wants then placing it in the oven
to heat it up. Management estimates that the additional time to process a sandwich/pastry order
follows a triangular distribution with parameter values equal to 3, 5, and 9 minutes. They expect
the arrival pattern of customers wanting a sandwich/pastry will follow a lognormal distribution
with mean 5 minutes and a standard deviation of 3. Since this is one of the best coffee places in the
world, management expects that every customer who purchases a food item will also purchase a
regular or specialty coffee.
A few additional issues that management would like you to consider are:
1) In the fashion typical of these types of establishments, management feels that one employee at the
ordering station and two for preparing food/coffee is sufficient. In this setup, each food preparation
employee has their own workstation: Order Prep WS1 and Order Prep WS2. The café has a
sophisticated computer system that directs each order (and customer) to the employee with the
shortest queue. If the two queues are the same, the computer will direct the order/customer to
Order Prep WS1.
2) Management has done some research and studied past data and feels that customers will decide to
forgo their coffee or grande double soy mocha lattes and/or foccacia smoked ham with aioli
sandwiches if their waiting time exceeds three minutes (which is typical for this type of industry).
They feel this translates into a customer balking when the sum of the order preparation queues for
WS1 and WS2 exceeds 12 people.