Buy More is a multinational consumer electronics retailer. As part of its service offering, Buy More has an internal repair service called The Nerd Herd that provides in-home service for Buy More customers. The Nerd Herd offers in-home repair services for four categories of consumer electronics: TVs and Audio, Computers, Security Systems, and Smart Appliances. 1 The Nerd Herd prides itself on its level of service and ability to quickly fix customers problems. The Nerd Herd slogan is Home repair made easy, with advertisements often showing the Nerd Herd getting customers up and running in time for the big game within hours of a call being placed. At a typical Buy More location, the Nerd Herd receives in-home service calls throughout the day. Calls are spread evenly across the four categories of consumer electronics, with a mean interarrival time between calls of 20 minutes and a standard deviation of 25 minutes. 2 The Nerd Herd process is simple. When a call is received, the first available Herder (i.e., repair tech) drives to the home of the customer to repair the broken item. The average service time for a repair (for all four categories) is distributed with a mean of 60 minutes and a standard deviation of 90 minutes. The high standard deviation is due to the wide range of problems a Herder may encounter on a call. During the work day, a typical Buy More location will have four Herders handling service calls. An outside service company recently approached Buy More to take over the in-home service currently handled by the Nerd Herd. Its proposal called for only two repair techs because it claimed that, with fully equipped mobile repair units (i.e., vans) and superior routing and scheduling technology, its technicians could complete repairs in 30 minutes on average with a standard deviation of 50 minutes. Herder managers were not surprisingly opposed to the proposal, vehemently arguing that it could not be possible for two technicians to respond to calls as quickly as four Herders there would be too many calls in the day and not enough techs to respond. Using the outside company would cost about the same as Buy More currently spends on the Nerd Herd. However, eliminating the Herding Zone offices and repair parts storage would free up valuable floor space on the sales floor for more product displays. The company is also considering another cost-neutral alternative. Some of the Herders had suggested to Buy More management that if Herders could focus their repair activities on a single category, they would be able to reduce the average amount of time needed per service and improve the quality of the work. In response to this suggestion, Buy More management is considering creating four separate service groups within the Nerd Herd, with each group dedicated to one of the four categories currently being serviced. Each service desk would be staffed by one Herder. Although Herders were confident that this proposal would reduce average service times for repairs, they were not as confident that it would reduce the variability of service times. That is, Herders expected the coefficient of variation for service times to remain the same under this proposal as it is for current service times

Analyze and compare (i) the Nerd Herds current performance, (ii) the proposed outside service option, and (iii) the Nerd Herds dedicated service desks proposal. 2) Provide a well-supported argument to management that clearly recommends a single option and justifies why it is preferred over the other two options. Solve using SimQuick simulation