Technology and Operations Management

Technology and Operations Management

1. A hotel has two wings, an east wing and a west wing. Each wing has 4 ‘room service maids’ working 7-hour shifts to service the rooms each day. The east wing has 40 standard rooms, 12 deluxe rooms, and 5 suites. The west wing has 50 standard rooms and 10 deluxe rooms. The standard times for servicing rooms are as follows: standard rooms 20 standard minutes, deluxe rooms 25 standard minutes, and suites 40 standard minutes. In addition, an allowance of 5 standard minutes per room is given for any miscellaneous jobs such as collecting extra items for the room or dealing with customer requests. What is the productivity of the maids in each wing of the hotel? What other factors might also influence the productivity of the maids? 2 In the example above, one of the maids in the west wing wants to job share with his partner, each working 3 hours per day. His colleagues have agreed to support him and will guarantee to service all the rooms in the west wing to the same standard each day. If they succeed in doing this, how has it affected their productivity?

2. A little-known department of your local government authority has the responsibility for keeping the area’s public lavatories clean. It employs 10 people who each have a number of public lavatories that they visit, clean and also report any necessary repairs every day. Draw up a list of ideas for how you would keep this fine body of people motivated and committed to performing this unpleasant task.

3.Consider how airlines cope with balancing capacity and demand. In particular, consider the role of yield management. Do this by visiting the website of a low- cost airline, and for a number of flights price the fare that is being charged by the airline from tomorrow onwards. In other words, how much would it cost if you needed to fly tomorrow, how much if you needed to fly next week, how much if you needed to fly in two weeks, etc. Plot the results for different flights and debate the findings.