Customers arrive at Mike & Steve’s bookstore according to a Poisson process at a mean rate of 48 per hour. The store pays its sales clerks $7.50 per hour in wages and benefits. Mike and Steve’s estimates the goodwill cost of a customer waiting to be served at $6.00 per hour and the goodwill cost of a customer being served at only $1.00 per hour. Customer service time follow an exponential distribution and average 2 minutes. Required:
a. Determine the number of sales clerks Mike & Steve’s should employ to minimize the store’s total average hourly costs.
b. If the customer arrival rate increases by 50% and the goodwill cost of a customer waiting to be served and being served were doubled, determine how many sales clerks Mike & Steve’s should employ to minimize the store’s total average hourly costs?

the clients (funders) and customers (individual nonprofit staff) are great to work with. that i can be open about being a person of faith when appropriate. the variety of my tasks each day.

two years ago, when picking flowers in the mountains back of yosemite valley, i found a book. it was blotted and storm-beaten; all of its outer pages were mealy and crumbly. the paper seemed to dissolve like the snow beneath which it had been buried, however; many of the inner pages were well preserved. and although all were more or less stained and torn, whole chapters were easily readable. this is the condition of the great open book of yosemite glaciers today; its granite pages have been torn and blurred by the same storms that wasted the castaway book.

two years ago, when picking flowers in the mountains back of yosemite valley; i found a book. it was blotted and storm-beaten, all of its outer pages were mealy and crumbly. the paper seemed to dissolve like the snow beneath which it had been buried, however, many of the inner pages were well preserved. and although all were more or less stained and torn; whole chapters were easily readable. this is the condition of the great open book of yosemite glaciers today, its granite pages have been torn and blurred by the same storms that wasted the castaway book.