Machine Learning for Operations Inc. (MLO) is a consulting firm that develops customized machine learning software to support operational decisions (e.g., for forecasting, procurement, scheduling, etc.). On average, MLO receives 1.6 new project requests per week. These arrivals follow a Poisson process. On each project, the firm's consultants work jointly in teams of two - a domain expert and a modeler. The same two individuals work as a team throughout the year. On average, each project requires one team working, on average, for 50 business days (from the time the consultants begin working on the project to handing over the results to the client). Historical data reveals that the standard deviation of project work time is 45 business days. MLO assigns projects in first-come-first-served order to the first available consultant team. Each team works on at most one project at a time. MLO currently employs 36 consultants, working as 18 teams. The firm pays each consultant $ 12,000 per month in salary and benefits, whether or not they are working on a project. On average, MLO charges $ 150,000 per project, based on its consulting rate of $ 3,000 per day of work on the project. Assume that each week consists of five business days, every month has four working weeks, and consultants work for all 12 months in a year. 

(c) OpsAI Inc. is another firm that does work very similar to that of MLO, but in a different geographical region (so they do not compete directly). Both firms are organized along similar lines - with teams of two consultants working on each project, comparable project work times (same mean and standard deviation of work time per project), and the same approach for quoting promise time. OpsAI is a somewhat smaller operation than MLO; on average, it receives a project request from a client once every 6 business days, with a coefficient of variation of 1. It charges clients the same rate as MLO. The CEO of OpsAI is customer-oriented. In particular, he wants to ensure that the promise time does not exceed 14 weeks. What is the minimum number of consultants OpsAI needs to employ to meet this norm?

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1 Calculate the average project duration for MLO Average project duration Average number of busi... View the full answer