Sweet Dreams Hotel is business traveler oriented hotel located next to one of the major convention centers in Boston. The hotel offers a range of amenities that satisfy the basic needs of the business traveler, including TV and high-speed internet and attracts price-conscious business travelers who want a confortable sleep and have little time to waste.

The hotel manager has noticed that the day before large conventions a large number of guests tend to arrive between 6- 9PM creating great havoc at the check-in desk. She decided to collect some data regarding the arrival pattern and the service time at registration to gain better insight into the problem. Data collected over the previous two months showed that on average 18 guests arrived at the hotel per hour during the peak period of 6- 9pm. The check-in desk is handled by a single clerk in each day or night shift, who checks-in one guest at a time by order of arrival. About 50% of the guests are enrolled in the loyalty program, for those guests the average time to complete check in is 2 minutes. For the remainder of the guests the check-in process takes on average 4 minutes.

The hotel policy is that guest should be able to check-in in less than 5 minutes.

Given current conditions how long do guests have to wait on average before check-in? Is it hotel meeting its policy?

The hotel manager asked the check-in clerks for suggestions to improve service performance. After a very participated brainstorming session the group has presented the following five recommendations.

Recc A: Hire a temp employee who would assist the clerk with the registration of guests during check-in. The additional clerk would enable to reduce the average service time for guests who are not enrolled in the loyalty program to 2 minutes.

Recc B: Invest in a self-check in kiosk, which would be placed in the hotel lobby Customers can check in at the interactive kiosk, which provides then with their room number and a room key. It is estimated that on average it will take 2 minutes for a customer to complete the check in at the kiosk.

Recc C: Develop a mobile app that enables customers to check-in online. Change every single room door lock at the hotel to enable opening the room door by punching a code on a keypad. Customers sign in from their smartphone, tablet or computer, and receive a confirmation email including the room number and a private code. Then the private code can be used to open the room.

The hotel manager has asked you to assess each recommendation in terms of its predicted impact on the check-in operation during the peak time of 6-9PM. How and why would you expect the parameters and measures of performance in the first column of the table to change? Indicate for each option whether you expect an Increase, Decrease, No Change, or Cannot Tell, and explain why. Please be specific in your explanations.

	Option A	Option B	Option C
Arrival rate at check-in during peak time
Service rate at check-in
Waiting time at check-in
Customer Satisfaction with check-in service

3. Consider recommendations A and B presented above.

a) Would recommendation A enable the hotel to meet its policy regarding waiting time?

For recommendation B, the installation of a kiosk for self check in, what percentage of customers would have to switch from check-in at the desk to self-check in at the kiosk to meet the hotel policy of check in under five minutes?