9 You have been hired as a consultant by a supermarket chain to answer a basic question: How many items per customer should be permitted in the fast checkout line? This is no trivial ques- tion for the chain's management; your findings will be the basis for corporate policy for all 2,000 stores. The vice president of operations has given you one month to do the study and two assistants to help you gather the data. In starting this study, you decide to avoid queuing theory as the tool for analysis (because of your concem about the reliability of its assumptions) and instead opt for simulation. Given the following data, explain in detail how you would go about your analysis stating (1) the cri- teria you would use in making your recommendation, (2) what additional data you would need to set up your simulation, (3) how you would gather the preliminary data, (4) how you would set up the problem for simulation, and (5) which factors would affect the applicability of your findings to all of the stores.

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Store locations Hours of operation Average store size Available checkers The United States and Canada 16 per day 9 checkout stands including fast checkout 7 to 10 (some engage in stocking activities when not at a checkout stand)