Boot Barn sells cowboy boot and western wear through catalogs and the web. Customers can phone in orders at any time day or night, 7 days a week. During the 1 am to 9 am shift, a single sales rep handles all calls. During this time, calls arrive at a rate of 14 per hour following a Poisson distribution. It takes the sales rep an average of four minutes to process each call. The variability in service times is approximately exponentially distributed. All calls received while the sales rep is busy are placed in a queue.

Part A.

If one additional rep is hired to work during the 1 am to 9 am period, what is the average amount of time a customer spends in the system? Keeping three decimals of your calculation.

A. 1.116 minutes

B. 5.112 minutes

C. 54.882 minutes

D. 6.228 minutes

E. a duration (in minutes) different from all the above

Part B

With the additional rep working during the 1 am to 9 am, what effect would this have on the average amount of time it takes to serve a customer? Keeping one decimals of your answer if needed.

A.

The service time is reduced by 0.1 minutes.

B.

The service time is reduced by 0.3 minutes.

C.

The service time is reduced by 0.8 minutes.

D.

The service time is reduced by a positive amount of time different from all the above.

E.

No effect