Final answer:
The scheduling of preventive maintenance is often based on historical service data, which provides an average time and variability for tasks. In the case of air conditioner maintenance, budgeting 1.1 hours per unit may not be sufficient due to the observed standard deviation suggesting that some units will require more time. This is separate from concepts like variable and fixed interval schedules, which relate to behavior reinforcement rather than operational logistics.
Step-by-step explanation:
The interval of scheduling and accomplishing preventative maintenance requirements is determined by analyzing the service records to understand the average time and variability in the time spent on maintenance tasks. In the context of your company's contract to perform preventive maintenance on air conditioners, service records indicate that the average time a technician spends servicing a unit is one hour, with a standard deviation of one hour. If your company plans to service a simple random sample of 70 units and budgets an average of 1.1 hours per technician to complete the work, this may not be enough time given the standard deviation. Applying the Central Limit Theorem, as the sample size is reasonably large, the sample mean will likely be close to the population mean, but the variability suggests that some units could take longer than 1.1 hours to service.
In contrast, reinforcement schedules like the variable interval and fixed interval schedules play a role in modulating behavior in different contexts, such as maintaining cleanliness in a restaurant or managing pain post-surgery with medication. These examples illustrate how the unpredictability or predictability of the interval can influence the consistency and urgency of the desired behavior. However, these psychological concepts do not directly influence the scheduling of maintenance work, which is more dependent on empirical data and operational logistics.