Moore, Aiken, and Payne is a critical care dental clinic serving the emergency needs of the general public on a first come, first served basis. The clinic has five dental chairs, three of which are currently staffed by a dentist. Patients in distress arrive at the rate of five per hour, according to a Poisson distribution, and do not balk or renege. The average time required for an emergency treatment is 30 minutes, according to an exponential distribution. Use POM for Windows or OM Explorer to answer the following questions:
a. If the clinic manager would like to ensure that patients do not spend more than 15 minutes on average waiting to see the dentist, are three dentists on staff adequate? If not, how many more dentists are required?
b. From the current state of three dentists on staff, what is the change in each of the following operating characteristics when a fourth dentist is placed on staff:
Average utilization
Average number of customers in line
Average number of customers in the system
c. From the current state of three dentists on staff, what is the change in each of the following operating characteristics when a fifth dentist is placed on staff?
Average utilization
Average number of customers in line
Average number of customers in the system