Case Study 10-1

Wayne Schuller wants to be able to assign the right amount of workers

per loading dock. He is being charged stiff penalties from the motor
carrier trucks that have to wait to be unloaded. Using queuing theory,
the amount of wait time and percentage of idle time can be calculated
for each group of workers. From my calculations, it would be best if
Wayne could utilize a forklift or get the Union to allow workers to do
other tasks during idle time.
Worker must have a full shift. A full shift of 8 hours and hourly wage of
$14 can get costly if a work group is too large. However Wayne needs
to push out trucks fast enough to not get charged $60 an hour
penalties for idle trucks. With just two workers, the average wait time
per truck per hour is 0.8 hour with a backlog of 3.2 trucks. This
number changes dramatically by adding just one more person to the
team. A 3-person team seems to be ideal. Adding more member
drives up the cost because of the wage. Probably of wait drastically
goes down as well, from 80% to 50%. Idle time per worker goes up.
This loses money for the company.
However with a 3-person team, only 64 trucks can be moved in an 8hour shift. With 5 people, 88 trucks can be moved a day. Wayne needs
to consider the amount of trucks that come in a day. Even though the
rate of arrival is 4 tricks per hour. This is an average and extra workers
should be brought in on day when it gets the busiest.
A forklift with 2 people is very fast. Each truck can be moved in 5
minutes. The company can move 12 trucks per hour or 96 trucks per
workers shift. Total cost is only $304. Getting the union to allow their
workers to take on extra duties while they are ideal will also save a lot
of money. This is easily seen on my spreadsheet. $356.16 is wasted on
5 people teams. They have about 5 hours idle time.
Wayne has to weigh his options. Everything seems to lean toward
either getting the forklift or convincing the union. If he cannot do
either, a 3-perison team is slower but should be sufficient enough to
hand a 4 truck per hour average.