You work for a logistics company and your manager has asked you to evaluate their shipping and outbound system queue. Specifically, the manager wants to better understand the relationship between packing rates and the resulting average amount of time a package spends in the system. The warehouse's average service rate is a function of the number of servers working such that (number_of_workers*72. At any given time, the manager can have 16 to 24 workers in the warehouse. Assuming the warehouse operation meets M/M/1 model assumptions and has an average package arrival rate of 1000 packages/hour, what is the minimum number of workers required to meet the threshold of 12 seconds for the average time a package spends in the system?

Costco wholesale corporation operates membership warehouses selling food, appliances, consumer electronics, apparel and other household goods at 471 locations across the u.s. as well as in canada, mexico and puerto rico. as of its fiscal year-end 2005, costco had approximately 21.2 million members. selected fiscal-year information from the company's balance sheets follows. ($ millions). selected balance sheet data 2005 2004 merchandise inventories $4,015 $3,644 deferred membership income (liability) 501 454 (a) during fiscal 2005, costco collected $1,120 cash for membership fees. use the financial statement effectstemplate to record the cash collected for membership fees. (b) in 2005, costco recorded $46,347 million in merchandise costs (that is, cost of goods sold). record thistransaction in the financial statement effects template. (c) determine the value of merchandise that costco purchased during fiscal-year 2005. use the financial statementeffects template to record these merchandise purchases. assume all of costco's purchases are on credit.