Reference no: EM132244021

A second weight scale and station, identical to the first, can be purchased and installed for an investment of $135,000. Cash operating costs for this second station total $45,000 per year (52 weeks). Trucks would still form a single line and follow FIFO servicing. The new scale would have the same operating characteristics, including exponentially distributed service times with an average of 4 minutes per truck. Run this case on QM as a multiple-server with an “infinite” calling population (QM module item “Waiting Lines – M/M/s”). Print and staple to this analysis the “Results Table” and the “Table of Probabilities” (print them on one page). Use the QM output and, where needed, manual calculations to answer the following questions. a. What percent of arriving trucks would you expect to have to wait? b. Company management has as a goal that a truck spend on average 5 minutes or less in the entire queuing system. Is this goal now being met? Explain c. By how many minutes has the “average time in the system” been reduced by using two weigh stations instead of one? d. Assume the operation runs 8 hours per day for 5 days per week. How many total minutes would be saved per week by adding the second scale? e. The owner of the company estimates that the out-of-pocket cash costs for a truck and driver to sit idle total $35 per hour. Using the just the estimated cash costs, how many weeks would it take to repay the investment in the second scale? (Hint: You must consider the station cash operating costs.)