Question:
During the winter heating season in a northern state, Howard’s Heating and Cooling Service receives an average of 3.1 emergency service calls per day from heating customers in their area. Howard has increased personnel and equipment resources to better handle such calls, and his company is now able to satisfy a maximum of 8 emergency service calls per day. During a typical day during the heating season, and assuming the daily number of emergency service calls to be Poisson distributed, what is the probability that Howard will receive more emergency service calls tomorrow than his company is able to handle? Considering this probability, would it seem advisable for Howard to increase or to decrease the level of personnel and equipment he devotes to handling such calls?