Exam 15: Managing Demand and Capacity

Harris Woodard has purchased a franchise business called Like New Windshields, a company that repairs cracked and pitted vehicle windshields. As a franchisee, he will come to your home or office to repair a damaged windshield. His goal is to make sure that he has enough customers without having more than he can handle efficiently. Which of the following is going to make it difficult for him to accomplish his goal?

A hotel that has 300 rooms charges a rate of $150 per night Monday through Thursday. During this period of peak demand, the hotel operates at 100 percent capacity. On weekends (Friday through Sunday), the hotel discounts half of its rooms at a rate of $100 per night while the remaining rooms are still priced at $150 per night. Calculate the hotel's yield for a Saturday night, if it fills 50 percent of the $150 rooms and sells all of the $100 rooms.

Convention hotels provide meeting rooms and banquet hotels to convention participants. Sometimes a specific convention may involve 2,000 members or only 75 members. To take care of both sizes of groups, convention hotels have movable walls that allow them to expand or contract a facility as needed by the group. By modifying its facility, the convention hotels are able to:

If you've ever watched the television show ER, you should have noticed how the emergency room staff selects patients on the basis of their need for treatment. Victims who have life-threatening injuries are seen ahead of those with minor complaints like an ingrown toenail or a case of poison ivy. Emergency rooms differentiate their waiting customers on the basis of:

The 2005 tsunami in Southeast Asia caused:

Keith-McCoy is a government auditing firm that specializes in auditing public transportation systems. The firm was operating at maximum capacity when it was asked to submit a bid on a very lucrative account in Chicago. If the firm were to win this account and keep all of its current accounts, it will more than likely:

Which of the following service businesses is LEAST likely to experience wide fluctuations in demand over time?

Peak demand regularly exceeds capacity in all of the following service businesses EXCEPT:

Traditional yield management strategies are most profitable when:

Hewlett-Packard uses FedEx to handle all of its fulfillment orders from its retail web site. Once an order is placed at the HP web site, it is automatically transmitted to FedEx's Memphis headquarters. Orders are packaged at FedEx's warehouse and shipped by FedEx to the HP customer. This arrangement was set up as a long-term solution to problems with distribution capacity that HP experienced prior to the implementation of this arrangement. Which strategy is HP using to flex demand to meet capacity?

There are several steps involved in understanding demand patterns for an organization. What is the first thing a service organization must do?

On certain days during the week, Disneyworld allows guests who stay at a Disney Resort hotel to enter the Magic Kingdom, Epcot Center or Disney-MGM Studios one hour before the parks are open to the public. Walt Disney World is minimizing waiting time by differentiating customers on the basis of:

Shelton Elementary School only needs its gymnasium from Monday through Friday. On the weekends it rents the facilities to an Upward Bound basketball program sponsored by a local church. By renting its facilities, the elementary school is:

If customer waits are common, a first step is to analyze the operational processes to remove any inefficiencies.

The Baltimore Orioles, a professional baseball team, offer standing room only seats to fans when a home game at The Ballpark at Camden Yards is sold out. The Baltimore Orioles are stretching _____ to flex the capacity of The Ballpark at Camden Yards to meet fan demand.

Which of the following queue configurations is designed to ensure fairness of waiting time?

Rosa Wilkins gives 30-minute therapeutic massages at a local gym. All of her Monday and Friday appointments are taken and she has a waiting list for those who would like to move their regular massage to the first or the last day in the week. At the end of those days Wilkins is exhausted. Demand on Tuesdays and Thursdays is at an acceptable level, but no one seems to want a massage on Wednesday. Wilkins wishes she could convince some of her Monday and Friday customers to come on Wednesday. Can you give her some ideas to help shift the demand for her service?

The primary constraint on service production for a popular, well-established theater company that annually presents a series of musical comedies is:

The Kingston Little Theater is a semi-professional troupe that presents six productions annually. It knows that if it presents a musical from the 1950s or the 1960s it will attract a large audience from the gay community to see the production. It could chart its demand pattern by looking at:

Which of the following is NOT considered a capacity constraint for a service provider?