Question

Worthington Hills grocery store has five regular checkout lines and one express line (12 items or less). Based on a sampling study, it takes 11 minutes on the average for a customer to go through the regular line and 4 minutes to go through the express line. The store is open from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily. a. What is the store's maximum capacity (customers processed per day)?

Answer 1

The store's maximum capacity is calculated based on the time it takes to serve a customer in each line and the store's operational hours. It is found that regular lines can serve approximately 65 customers each, and the express line can serve 180 customers per day. The total maximum capacity is 505 customers per day.

Step-by-step explanation:

The store's maximum capacity can be calculated by determining how many customers can be served in each line during the store's operational hours and then summing up the capacities of all checkout lines. The operational hours are from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., which is a total of 12 hours or 720 minutes.

The regular lines can serve one customer every 11 minutes, and the express line can serve one customer every 4 minutes. Each regular line's daily capacity is 720 minutes / 11 minutes per customer = approximately 65 customers. The express line's daily capacity is 720 minutes / 4 minutes per customer = 180 customers.

Since there are five regular lines, their combined capacity is 5 lines * 65 customers per line = 325 customers. Adding the express line capacity to this gives a total of 325 + 180 = 505 customers. Therefore, the store's maximum capacity (customers processed per day) is 505 customers.