Answer:
The final answer is 7.
Explanation:
Since the question states that Little's law can be applied to any single part of the store (for example, just the checkout line), then the average number of shoppers,
�
, in the checkout line at any time is
�
=
�
�
, where
�
is the number of shoppers entering the checkout line per minute and
�
is the average number of minutes each shopper spends in the checkout line.
Since 84 shoppers per hour make a purchase, 84 shoppers per hour enter the checkout line. However, this needs to be converted to the number of shoppers per minute (in order to be used with
�
=
5
). Since there are 60 minutes in one hour, the rate is
84
shoppers
per
hour
60
minutes
=
1.4
shoppers per minute. Using the given formula with
�
=
1.4
and
�
=
5
yields
�
=
�
�
=
(
1.4
)
(
5
)
=
7
Therefore, the average number of shoppers,
�
, in the checkout line at any time during business hours is 7.