Problem 2's answer?
Problem 3's answer?
Problem 4's answer?
Problem 5's answer?
What is mu?
What is rho?
Problem 2's answer?
Problem 3's answer?
Problem 4's answer?
Problem 5's answer?
Problem 6's answer? (Not sure how to approach this problem? Scroll down
for step-by-step help.)
The following applets walk you through the solution to problem 6:
There are three parameters in this model: lambda, mu, and the pay rate.
(The pay rate is how much a person who waits gets per hour.) Which one
of those parameters changes when the average service time is cut from 20
minutes to 15 minutes?
What is its new value?
Now, redo problem 5, using this new parameter value in place of the
original one. What do you get now for how much the discount costs the hospital
per hour?
This answer is your expected cost per hour of your discounts if your
service time averages 15 minutes.
Take your original answer to problem 5, the amount the discount costs you at the old service rate, and subtract this new answer, the amount the discount costs you at the new service rate. The difference is the most you could spend on the speed-up and still at least break even. Calculate that difference and try the number you get in the first applet for problem 6 above.