Assignment: Forecasting and time series analysis

Many operations managers find that using mathematical models is helpful when analysing queuing and forecasting problems. In light of this, for this next Assignment, you will again use the POM for Windows software to practice solving such kinds of operations management problems. You will need to leverage this software to answer a new set of questions that relate to the topics you have studied this past week. Compile the questions into a word doc.

Question 1

• Launch the POM-QM for Windows software and from the main menu select Module and then Forecasting.

• Next, select File, Newand Time series analysis.

To answer Question 1:

Use the forecasting module that you opened in the POM-QM for Windows software to solve the Southwestern University case study at the end of Chapter 4 of the Heizer and Render (2014) textbook. For this case study, you are required to build a forecasting model. Assume a trend analysis (regression over time) forecasting model and build a model for each of the five games (five models in total) by using the forecasting module of the POM software. Answer the three Discussion questions given in the case study. Explain your reasoning or show your calculations.

Question 2

• Launch the POM-QM for Windows software and from the main menu select Moduleand then Waiting lines.

Scenario: During registration at a university, an adviser must approve students' course selections. It takes the adviser an average of 2.8 minutes (exponentially distributed) to approve each schedule, and students arrive at the adviser's office at the rate of 20 per hour (Poisson distributed).

To answer Question 2:

Address the following using the POM software.

• Compute the average time a student spends in the waiting line. Students have complained to the registrar about the length of time they must wait to have their schedules approved. The registrar is considering several ways to reduce the waiting time.

• One way to reduce the waiting time is to assign some assistants to the adviser. Each assistant would reduce the average time required to approve a schedule by 0.2 minutes, down to a minimum of 1.0 minute. How many assistants should the registrar assign to the adviser if the registrar feels that a waiting time of ten minutes is not unreasonable?

• About one-fifth of the students identify their cases as routine. The advisor can serve these kinds of routine cases in one minute (with negligible variance). Hence, another way the registrar can reduce the waiting time is to provide an assistant to handle routine cases, while the advisor handles the non-routine cases. Do you find this option acceptable?

• Yet another way the registrar can reduce the waiting time is to provide additional advisers. Assuming that the average service time for each adviser is the same, how many advisers would the registrar need to hire to bring the waiting time to 10 minutes or less?