Arrival Cycles by Quantity

Building the Model: Advanced Elements > Arrival Cycles > Arrival Cycles by Quantity

Arrival Cycles by Quantity

The previous example was based on the assumption that a certain percentage of arrivals came within a specified time interval. An alternate method of specifying an arrival cycle is to specify the number of arrivals to arrive within each time interval.

Example 1

Suppose that in the bank example we knew that for each cycle period, the number of customers to arrive during each time interval within the cycle period is as follows:

From Before Number

9:00 am 10:30 am 100

10:30 am 11:30 am 150

11:30 am 1:00 pm 300

1:00 pm 4:00 pm 150

4:00 pm 5:00 pm 300

With the data in this format, we specify the Arrival cycle by choosing Qty in the “Qty/Percent” field and complete the cycle table as follows:

This table could also be specified cumulatively by choosing Yes in the Cumulative... field and entering the quantity values in a cumulative format.

Please Note: When specifying Arrival cycles by quantity, the value entered in the “Quantity each” field of the Arrivals edit table changes meaning. Instead of the total arrivals per cycle, it represents a factor by which all entries in the cycle table will be multiplied. This field may be any valid expression which evaluates to a number. This allows the same arrival cycle to be entered for more than one arrival record that has a different factor applied to it. For example, you might want to define a different factor to a customer arrival pattern depending on the day of the week. In this case, define an arrival record for each day with a frequency of one week.

Example 2

Suppose we wish to see the effect on the Bank example if the number of arrivals is increased by 50%. The relative quantities per time interval remain the same but now 50% more customers arrive each day. Using the data from the previous example, we enter the same values in the Arrival cycle quantity fields, but specify a value of 1.5 in the quantity field of the Arrival edit table.

The result is an arrival schedule with the following parameters.

From Before Quantity

9:00 am 10:30 am 150

10:30 am 11:30 am 225

11:30 am 1:00 pm 450

1:00 pm 4:00 pm 225

4:00 pm 5:00 pm 450