Failsafe Textiles employs 3 highly skilled maintenance worke

Failsafe Textiles employs 3 highly skilled maintenance workers who are responsible for repairing the numerous industrial robots used in its manufacturing process. A worker can fix 1 robot every 8 hours on average, with an exponential distribution. An average of 1 robot fails every 3 hours, according to a Poisson distribution. Each down robot costs the company $100 per hour in lost production. A new maintenance worker costs the company $80 per hour in salary, benefits and equipment.

Should the manager hire any new personnel? if so, how many people? What would you recommend to the manager, based on your analysis?

Solution

Answer:

Time taken to repair one robot on an average = 8 minutes per robot

one robot fails in 3 hours it means arrival of robots is ate a rate of 1/3 robots per hour.

Therefore lambda = 1/3 robots per hour.

Therefore mean = mu = 60/ 8 = 7.5

Average utilization rate = (1/3) / (3 x 7.5) = 0.0148 min

Total number of skilled workers = s = 3