The mail order firm of L. L. Pea receives an average of 200 calls per hour, where times between calls are exponentially distributed. It takes an L. L. Pea operator an average of three minutes to handle a call. If a caller gets a busy signal, L. L. Pea assumes that he or she will call a competing mail-order company, and L. L. Pea will lose an average of $30 in profit. The cost of keeping a phone line open is $9 per hour. How many operators should L. L. Pea have on duty? Use simulation to answer this question. Does the answer depend on whether the service times are exponentially distributed?

Modeling Problems