South Beach University is conducting an online exam. There are 1,200 students taking this exam. Students are required to download the exam questions from the university’s learning management system (LMS), solve the questions, type their workings and answers in a computer word processing application, and submit the files back to the LMS. It is estimated that the LMS takes an average of 30 seconds to process a submission. For example, if a student submits his files at time T and the LMS is able to start processing his submitted files right away, it is estimated that the LMS accepts the submission at T + 30 seconds. The cut-off time of the exam is 12pm on the exam day, that is, if a submission cannot be accepted by the LMS by 12pm, it is considered late submission. Due to the capacity of the LMS servers, a maximum of 150 submissions can be processed at any point of time. Submissions are processed on a first-come-first-serve basis. If the number of submissions exceeds the capacity, some submissions would be put on hold. Use Little’s Law to analyse and answer the following questions. (a) Explain Little’s Law and its three (3) parameters. Link the three parameters to various quantities of interest in this question. (b) Is it wise for a student to submit his file at 11:58am on the exam day? Why or why not? You should explain assumption (if any) and show calculation steps using Little’s Law. (c) Estimate the percentage of late submissions if all students submit their files in the last three (3) minutes.

Practical Management Science
6th Edition
ISBN:9781337406659
Author:WINSTON, Wayne L.
Publisher:WINSTON, Wayne L.
Chapter2: Introduction To Spreadsheet Modeling
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South Beach University is conducting an online exam. There are 1,200 students taking this exam. Students are required to download the exam questions from the university’s learning management system (LMS), solve the questions, type their workings and answers in a computer word processing application, and submit the files back to the LMS.


It is estimated that the LMS takes an average of 30 seconds to process a submission. For example, if a student submits his files at time T and the LMS is able to start processing his submitted files right away, it is estimated that the LMS accepts the submission at T + 30 seconds. The cut-off time of the exam is 12pm on the exam day, that is, if a submission cannot be accepted by the LMS by 12pm, it is considered late submission.


Due to the capacity of the LMS servers, a maximum of 150 submissions can be processed at any point of time. Submissions are processed on a first-come-first-serve basis. If the number of submissions exceeds the capacity, some submissions would be put on hold.

Use Little’s Law to analyse and answer the following questions.

(a) Explain Little’s Law and its three (3) parameters. Link the three parameters to various quantities of interest in this question.

(b) Is it wise for a student to submit his file at 11:58am on the exam day? Why or why not? You should explain assumption (if any) and show calculation steps using Little’s Law.

(c) Estimate the percentage of late submissions if all students submit their files in the last three (3) minutes.

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