Determining staffing levels for a product inspection process

In this thesis, we investigate the staffing problem in two ways. First, we develop a simulation model for the inspection system. The simulation model is used for scenario and sensitivity analyses to calculate the service rate of the inspection system for various staffing levels and then to determine the minimum number of staff required to ensure system reliability for a range of product volumes. Next, we apply queuing theory to the staffing analysis, and show that the staffing levels determined by the queuing theory approximation are close to the simulation results. The actual company and the nature of the products involved must remain confidential. Similarly, all data in this thesis have been scaled by an arbitrary number. However, the critical topology of the queuing system, the nature and demands of the problem and the methodology of their solution are easily portable to other environments.