Question

Describe in your Word answer file how you can consider and analyze each of the following scenarios as a queueing system. In particular, for each scenario (a) to (e) determine the corresponding calling population, the customers or items that enter the system for service, the servers, the nature of the service, the capacity of the queue, and the queue discipline.

(a) A hair salon
(b) A parking lot
(c) A fire station
(d) A group of machines assigned to an operator for maintenance
(e) A supercomputer shared among a group of researchers at a university.

Answer 1

In a queueing system, a hair salon would have customers as people who need haircuts, a parking lot would have customers as cars.

Step-by-step explanation:

a. For a hair salon, the calling population would be the people who need haircuts. The customers are the people who enter the salon for service, the servers are the hairstylists, the nature of the service is haircuts and styling, the capacity of the queue is the number of chairs available for customers to wait, and the queue discipline could be first-come, first-served.

b. For a parking lot, the calling population would be the drivers looking for parking spaces. The customers are the cars that enter the parking lot, the nature of the service is parking, the capacity of the queue is the number of available parking spaces, and the queue discipline could be first-come, first-served.

c. For a fire station, the calling population would be people in need of emergency assistance. The customers are the individuals who require assistance, the servers are the firefighters and emergency personnel, the nature of the service is emergency response, the capacity of the queue would depend on the resources available in the station, and the queue discipline could be based on the urgency of the situation or a predetermined priority system.

d. For a group of machines assigned to an operator for maintenance, the calling population would be the machines in need of maintenance. The customers are the machines that require maintenance, the server is the operator, the nature of the service is maintenance or repair, the capacity of the queue would depend on the number of machines the operator can handle simultaneously, and the queue discipline could depend on the priority of the machines or a predetermined schedule.

e. For a supercomputer shared among a group of researchers at a university, the calling population would be the researchers needing computational resources. The customers are the researchers who require access to the supercomputer, the server is the supercomputer itself, the nature of the service is computational tasks, the capacity of the queue would depend on the processing power and resources of the supercomputer, and the queue discipline could be determined by a scheduling system or priority levels.