The local Burger Doodle fast-food restaurant has a drive-through window. Customers in cars arrive at the window at the rate of 10 per hour (Poisson distributed). It requires an average of 4 minutes (exponentially distributed) to take and fill an order. The restaurant chain has a service goal of an average waiting time of 3 minutes.
a. Will the current system meet the restaurant’s service goal?
b. If the restaurant is not meeting its service goal, it can add a second drive-through window that will reduce the service time per customer to 2.5 minutes. Will the additional window enable the restaurant to meet its service goal?
c. During the 2-hour lunch period, the arrival rate of drive-in customers increases to 20 per hour. Will the two-window system be able to achieve the restaurant’s service goal during this rush period?