Donna Shader, manager of the Winter Park Hotel, is considering how to restructur

Question

Donna Shader, manager of the Winter Park Hotel, is considering how to restructure the front desk to reach an optimum level of staff efficiency and guest service. At present, the hotel has five clerks on duty, each with a separate waiting line, during the peak check-in time of 3:00 pm. To 5:00 pm. Observation of arrivals during this time shows that an average of 80 guests arrive each hour (although there is no upward limit on the number that could arrive at any given time). It takes an average of 3.2 minutes for each front-desk clerk to register each guest. Donna is considering three plans for improving guest service by reducing the length of time guests spend waiting in line. The first proposal would designate one employee as a quick-service clerk for guests registering under corporate accounts, a market segment that fills about 30% of all occupied rooms. Because corporate guests are preregistered, their registration takes just 2 minutes. With these guests separated from the rest of the clientele, the average time for registering a typical guest would climb to 3.8 minutes. Under Plan 1, noncorporate guests would choose any of the remaining four lines. The second plan is to implement a single-line system. All guests could form a single waiting line to be served by whichever of five clerks became available. This option would require sufficient lobby space for what could be a substantial queue. The third proposal involves using an automatic teller machine (ATM) for check-ins. This ATM would provide a service just slightly better than a clerk, 3.0 minutes. Given that initial use of this technology might be minimal, Shader estimates that 20% of customers, primarily frequent guests, would be willing to use the machines. (This might be a conservative estimate if the guests perceive direct benefits from using the ATM, as bank customers do. Citibank reports that some 95% of its Manhattan customers use its ATMs.) Donna would set up a single queue for customers who prefer human check-in clerks. This would be served by the five clerks, although Donna is hopeful that the machine will allow a reduction to four.

Questions 1. Determine the average amount of time that a guest spends checking in under the current mode of operation. How would this change under each of the stated options?

2. Which option do you recommend?

3. What other considerations or limitations should be considered/evaluated?

Explanation / Answer

1. 80 / 5 = 16
60 min / 3.2 minutes = 18.75
1 / (18.75 – 16) = .36 hour, or 21.6 minutes
The average amount of time that a guest spends checking in under the
current mode of operation is 21.6 minutes

First proposal

30% or .3(80) = 24 guests will be re-routed to a quick serve line. A clerk can
accommodate each guest on average of 2 minutes, so his or her average wait
time would be 10 minutes (1 / (30-24) = .16666 or 10 minutes). The other 56
guests would be routed to the other 4 clerks, 56 / 4 = 14 guests per hour. Their
average time is 3.8 minutes or .06333 hour so 1 / .06333 = 15.79 per hour. The
average time those guests would have to wait is 1 / (15.79 – 14) = .5587 hour
or 33.5 minutes. The mean time for all guests is 0.3(10) + 0.7(33.5) = 26.45
minutes.

Second proposal

This proposal is much faster than the current mode and proposal #1.

Third proposal
60 / 3 = 20 guests per hour the ATM will serve.
1 / (20-16) = .25 hour or 15 minutes on average a guest will wait being
checked in.
80 guests total – 16 per hour = 64.

This proposal is fast (7.2 minutes), but not faster than proposal #2 (6.1
minutes).
This is the fastest proposal yet. It has the lowest mean average that a guest
would spend checking in… 5.8 minutes.

We would recommend proposal #3 using 5 servers plus an ATM because it
yields a much faster turn around at 5.8 minutes per guest.

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