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At 420 Students Seen A Day

The head of registration advisors at BU has decided advisors must finish advising 420 students per day within 2 weeks. With the current average advising time of 12 minutes, wait times will be too long. Reducing advising to 10 minutes may also cause complaints. BU is considering hiring 2 more advisors, lowering average wait to 5 minutes. Alternatively, having current advisors work 6 days per week advising 350 students daily would yield a 7 minute average wait. Hiring more advisors costs $12,000 while having advisors work 6 days costs $13,000, making the latter more expensive. From a student satisfaction perspective, the lower 5 minute wait under the first alternative would be preferred.

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Elliot Richard
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109 views2 pages

At 420 Students Seen A Day

The head of registration advisors at BU has decided advisors must finish advising 420 students per day within 2 weeks. With the current average advising time of 12 minutes, wait times will be too long. Reducing advising to 10 minutes may also cause complaints. BU is considering hiring 2 more advisors, lowering average wait to 5 minutes. Alternatively, having current advisors work 6 days per week advising 350 students daily would yield a 7 minute average wait. Hiring more advisors costs $12,000 while having advisors work 6 days costs $13,000, making the latter more expensive. From a student satisfaction perspective, the lower 5 minute wait under the first alternative would be preferred.

Uploaded by

Elliot Richard
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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At 420 students seen a day, 

                        =    

                        = 

3. If the average time to advise a student is reduced to 10 minutes, then the average wait
time would be

=   

= 

19-26 Waiting time, cost considerations, customer satisfaction. Refer to the information
presented in Exercise 19-25. The head of the registration advisors at BU has decided that the
advisors must finish their advising in 2 weeks (10 working days) and, therefore, must advise 420
students a day. However, the average waiting time (given a 12-minute advising period) will
result in student complaints, as will reducing the average advising time to 10 minutes. BU is
considering two alternatives: 

a. Hire two more advisors for the 2-week (10-working day) advising period. This will increase the
available number of advisors to 12 and therefore lower the average waiting time.
b. Increase the number of days that the advisors work for during the 2-week registration period
from 5 to 6 days a week. If BU increases the number of days worked to 6 days per week, then the
10 advisors need only see 350 students a day in order to advise all of the students in 2 weeks.

Required:
1. What would the average wait time be under alternative A and under alternative B?
2. If advisors earn $100 per day, which alternative would be cheaper for BU (assume that if the
advisors work for 6 days in a given workweek, they will be paid time and a half for the sixth
day)?
3. From a student satisfaction point of view, which of the two alternatives would be preferred?
Why?
SOLUTION
(25 min.)  Waiting time, cost considerations, and customer satisfaction 
(continued from 19-25).

1. a) If BU hires two more advisors, then the average wait time will be

=   

=  
b) If BU has its current employees work six days a week and has them advise 350 students a
day. Therefore, the average wait time will be

=   

=  
 
2. A) Cost if BU hires two extra advisors for the registration period:
Advisor salary cost = 12 advisors × 10 days × $100 = $12,000
B) Cost if BU has its 10 advisors work six days a week for the registration period:
Advisor salary cost = 10 advisors × 10 days × $100 + 10 advisors × 2 days ×
$150 = $13,000
Alternative B is more costly for BU.

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