A major banking institution, Best Bank, plans to open a new branch
office in Littletown. Preliminary estimates suggest that 2 tellers (and
teller windows) should be provided, but this decision now awaits further
analysis. |
Marketing surveys indicate that the new Littletown bank will attract
enough business that customers requiring teller service will enter the
bank at the rate of about 1 per minute on the average. Thus the average
time between consecutive customer arrivals is estimated to be 1 minute. |
No parking is available near the bank, so a special parking lot for
bank customers only will be provided. A parking lot attendant will be on
duty to validate each customer's parking before he or she leaves the car
to enter the bank. This validation process takes at least 0.5 minute, so
the minimum time between consecutive arrivals of customers into the bank
is 0.5 minute. |
Based on past experience in other branch offices, it is known that
the time required by a teller to serve a customer will vary widely from
customer to customer, but the average time is about 1.5 minutes. These
data suggest that two tellers should be able to keep up with the customers
quite well. However, management wants to be sure that customers will not
frequently encounter a long waiting line and an excessive wait before receiving
service. |
Therefore, simulation will be used to study how much waiting will occur
if two tellers are provided. |