TechnologyandOperationsManagement.pdf

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.