Question

1. Generally speaking, which of the following is NOT a common feature of a service organization?

a. Quality is not easy to measure in service processes

b. Customers are more involved in service processes

c. Service processes have less variability

d. Satisfaction in services is subjective

2. Which of the following is NOT an assumption made in the queueing model discussed in class?

a. The arrival rate can be larger than the service rate

b. There is infinite waiting room

c. There is no balking

d. First come first serve processing discipline

3. Which of the following is NOT a benefit of pooling servers?

a. Pooling balances the workload between servers

b. Pooling increases the overall service rate

c. Pooling allows firms to achieve the same waiting time with fewer servers

d. Pooling allows firms to achieve a lower waiting time with the same servers

4. Suppose that for some single-resource queueing system, the expected waiting time in queue is E[Tq] = 10 minutes, the utilization is 40%, and customer arrivals follow a Poisson process. If the customer arrival rate doubles but nothing else in the system changes (and arrivals are still Poisson), which of the following is the new E[Tq]?

a. 10 minutes

b. 20 minutes

c. 40 minutes

d. 60 minutes

5. A pediatric practice has 5 physicians. Historically, patients were assigned to one physician and these patients always were treated by the same physician. For example, Alice’s patients always visited her (for “well visits” and “sick visits”) and never interacted with the other physicians. However, they have decided to change how they see patients. Now patients will be seen by whoever is available (i.e., not treating patients). Based on our discussion of queueing analysis, which of the outcomes below is likely to occur due to this change?

a. The coefficient of variation of patient inter-arrival times will increase

b. The utilization of each physician will increase

c. The average number of patients being served by a physician will increase

d. The average waiting time for a patient will decrease

Answer 1

Answer 1: Option C

Explanation: In a service-based organization, the variability is more as the service can not be identical for all the customers. The service varies from customer to customer and every time it is rendered.