Waiting time, service industry. The registration advisers at a small university (SU) help 4,000 students develop each of their class schedules and register for classes each semester. Each adviser works for 10 hours a day during the registration period. SU currently has 10 advisers. While advising an individual student can take anywhere from 2 to 30 minutes, it takes an average of 12 minutes per student. During the registration period, the 10 advisers see an average of 300 students a day.

REQUIRED . e, 1. Using the formula on p. 936, calculate how long the average student will have to wait in the adviser’s office before being advised.

2. The head of the registration advisers would like to increase the number of students seen each day, because at 300 students a day it would take 14 working days to see all of the students. This is a problem because the registration period lasts for only two weeks

(10 working days). If the advisers could advise 400 students a day, it would take only two weeks (about 10 days). However, they want to make sure that the waiting time is not excessive. What would be the average waiting time if 400 students were seen each day?

3. SU wants to know the effect of reducing the average advising time on the average wait time. If SU can reduce the average advising time to 10 minutes, what would be the average waiting time if 400 students were seen each day?

LO1