Two of the nurses (Mary and Jane) from the textbook example Riverview Clinic Urgent Care Staffing Using Linear Programming (pages 326-330) have decided to work part-time rather than full-time. They would like to work only two consecutive days per week. Because they would be part-time employees, salary, and benefits per nurse-day for these nurses would be reduced to $160 on weekdays and $220 on weekend days. Riverview could hire an additional full-time nurse if needed. 

Set up the problem in Excel to reflect the possibility of allowing these two nurses to work part-time. 

Using Excel Solver, determine how many nurses should be assigned to each possible schedule. Riverview’s goal is still to minimize weekly salary expenses.

• Should Riverview agree with Mary and Jane’s request to work part-time? Why?

Should Riverview hire an additional full-time nurse? Why?

• Assuming that part-time nurses and any new hire will accept any schedule and preferences (and preferences scores) for the remainder of the nurses are the same (as in the textbook example), what new schedule would you recommend for each nurse? You should use Excel Solver to answer this question.

For part a., you only have to construct an X-bar chart using the standard deviation of the observations to estimate the population standard deviation and calculate the control limits. Parts b., c., and d. are the same as in the textbook.