You are in charge of a quarry that supplies sand and stoneaggregates to your company’s construction sites. Emptytrucks from construction sites arrive at the quarry’s hugepiles of sand and stone aggregates and wait in line to enterthe station, which can load either sand or aggregate. Atthe station, they are filled with material, weighed, checkedout, and proceed to a construction site. Currently, nineempty trucks arrive per hour, on average. Once a truckhas entered a loading station, it takes 6 minutes for it to befilled, weighed, and checked out. Concerned that trucks arespending too much time waiting and being filled, you areevaluating two alternatives to reduce the average time thetrucks spend in the system. The first alternative is to addside boards to the trucks (so that more material could beloaded) and to add a helper at the loading station (so thatfilling time could be reduced) at a total cost of $50,000. Thearrival rate of trucks would change to six per hour, and thefilling time would be reduced to 4 minutes. The second al-ternative is to add another loading station identical to thecurrent one at a cost of $80,000. The trucks would wait ina common line and the truck at the front of the line wouldmove to the next available station.Which alternative would you recommend if you want to re-duce the current average time the trucks spend in the system,including service?
You are in charge of a quarry that supplies sand and stone
aggregates to your company’s construction sites. Empty
trucks from construction sites arrive at the quarry’s huge
piles of sand and stone aggregates and wait in line to enter
the station, which can load either sand or aggregate. At
the station, they are filled with material, weighed, checked
out, and proceed to a construction site. Currently, nine
empty trucks arrive per hour, on average. Once a truck
has entered a loading station, it takes 6 minutes for it to be
filled, weighed, and checked out. Concerned that trucks are
spending too much time waiting and being filled, you are
evaluating two alternatives to reduce the average time the
trucks spend in the system. The first alternative is to add
side boards to the trucks (so that more material could be
loaded) and to add a helper at the loading station (so that
filling time could be reduced) at a total cost of $50,000. The
arrival rate of trucks would change to six per hour, and the
filling time would be reduced to 4 minutes. The second al-
ternative is to add another loading station identical to the
current one at a cost of $80,000. The trucks would wait in
a common line and the truck at the front of the line would
move to the next available station.
Which alternative would you recommend if you want to re-
duce the current average time the trucks spend in the system,
including service?
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