Answer to Question #313946 in Management for STE

Question

Case study: Glebe Farm

The farm is open to the public from April through to October but only from Friday through to Monday with Saturday and Sunday typically having twice the number of visitors. The opening times are from 11am to 7pm when milking finishes with a charge of £5/person which includes parking. There is parking marked out for 40 cars and 4 x 56 seat buses. A typical visiting pattern involves 90% of visitors arriving before 12:30 where they picnic and tour the farm leaving via the farm shop. Typically, 70% of visitors will stay to view the cows being milked from 4-6:30pm.

a.     According to the law of variability, increasing variability always degrades the performance of a delivery system. What are the sources of demand variability for the Glebe farm and how they are affecting the performance? 

Answer 1

Volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity are the four major causes of demand variability