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A predictable peak is planned with bounded responses — capacity added for the peak hours, demand moved out of them, or the offer narrowed — sized from the arrival and service rates, prepared in advance and reviewed afterwards.
Paper packet. Every task here also exists on screen, where it is checked automatically; answers written on paper are not assessed by Nydus. When you are back at a device, enter your answers there.
You will size the gap a predictable peak opens from arrival and service rates, find how many registers or people close it, sort responses into adding capacity, moving demand and narrowing the offer, and tell a plan from a hope.
A line grows by the gap between arrivals and what a step finishes. Most small businesses have hours when that gap opens every week, and they know exactly when. This lesson plans for them.
| Term | What it means |
|---|---|
| Peak | A period when arrivals rise well above normal. |
| Predictable peak | One that comes at a known time: lunch, month end, spring. |
| Bounded response | What will be done, for which hours, at what cost. |
| Add capacity | Serve more at the peak: an extra register, a helper. |
| Move demand | Shift arrivals out of the peak: pre-orders, slots, prices. |
| Narrow the offer | A shorter menu or service list, so each order is quicker. |
Neighborhood Kitchen's register can serve 60 an hour; from noon to 1 pm, 72 arrive. The gap of 12 an hour is known in advance, which means it can be planned for, in one or more of three ways:
Sizing comes from the rates. To stop the line growing at a stall where 90 arrive an hour and one register serves 30, the registers must together serve at least 90: three registers, or two registers and 30 customers moved elsewhere.
Another way: table
Neighborhood Kitchen's lunch peak, three responses.
| Response | What it does to the gap of 12 |
|---|---|
| Second register, noon to 1 pm | Serves up to 120: gap closed |
| Pre-orders at 11:30 (about 15) | Arrivals fall to 57: gap closed |
| Short menu, noon to 1 pm | Register serves about 70: gap closed |
Another way: steps
A peak plan follows the same order every time. Measure the peak from records, such as last year's bookings for the last five days of each month or the register receipts for Saturday mornings, so the plan is sized to what happens, not to a memory of the worst day. Size the gap against capacity. Choose and prepare the response before the peak arrives: book the extra cleaner, publish the early slots, print the short menu. Review afterwards: did the line grow, did the extra hours pay for themselves?
What is not a plan: working through the night, hoping the weather turns, asking customers to be patient. Each of those makes the owner or the customer absorb the peak, and each is repeated every year because nothing was decided.
Find the peak. From the records: which hours, days or weeks see arrivals well above normal, and by how much.
Work out the gap. Peak arrivals an hour less what the step can serve an hour, at the bottleneck step.
Choose the mix. Start with the cheapest response that closes the gap. Often a little of each works best: a few pre-orders, a slightly shorter menu and one extra pair of hands.
Size each response. How many customers will move, how many more can be served, how much quicker each order will be. Add them up until the gap is closed, with some room to spare for bursts.
Prepare. Book the people, print the menu, publish the slots, before the peak.
Check the plan. Before the peak, add the capacity and subtract the moved demand: capacity should exceed the remaining arrivals. After it, compare the line and the takings with last time. If the line still grew, the gap was larger than measured, or a response did less than expected.
Planning from records is allowed, and needed, because a predictable peak repeats. Last year's month-end bookings are the best estimate of this year's, adjusted for any growth in the business.
Adding capacity only for the peak hours is allowed because the gap only exists then. A second register all day costs eight hours to fix one; the same register from noon to 1 pm costs one hour and closes the same gap.
Moving demand is allowed because the line depends on arrivals as well as service. A customer who collects at 11:30 instead of 12:15 is served by the same register, in an hour when it has spare capacity.
Narrowing the offer is allowed because capacity depends on the minutes each order takes. Fewer, quicker items raise what the step serves an hour.
Moving demand only works if customers accept the new time. Give them a reason: a small discount for an earlier slot, a guaranteed time with no line, a pre-packed bag ready to grab. Bright Home Cleaning's tenants will move a clean to the 22nd if it costs 10 dollars less and the inspection is not until the 30th; they will not move it if the apartment is still full of furniture.
Watch for demand that leaves instead of moving. If a shorter menu sends lunch customers to the café next door, it has cut the line by losing sales. Count orders before and after: a good peak plan keeps the sales and loses the line.
Extra people at the peak are often the simplest fix, but they need planning too. Book them in advance, train them on the one step they will cover, and put them where the bottleneck is. A helper who wraps lunches when the register is the bottleneck adds nothing.
Their full cost is more than their hourly wage; a later lesson in this course works it out. And the rules on minimum shifts, breaks and overtime for anyone working the peak are set by federal and state law. Look up the current rules for the business's state from an official source before planning short shifts, and note where and when you checked.
Some peaks come once a year: the holiday market, the spring bike rush, tax season for a bookkeeper, back-to-school for a shoe shop. They are as predictable as the lunch hour, just less frequent, and so easier to forget until they arrive.
Put them in the calendar a season ahead, with last year's figures beside them. Plan supplies as well as people: a spring rush needs extra brake pads and tubes on the shelf, not only a second mechanic. The reorder lessons that follow show how to size that stock.
Sometimes no affordable mix closes the gap. A stall with room for two registers, at a market where 150 people an hour arrive, will have a line however well it plans. Then the honest choices are to accept a line and make it pleasant and short-lived, or to turn some demand away clearly: 'sold out of weekly bags for today', with a pre-order sheet for next week.
Turning demand away openly is better than a line that grows until people leave angry. The constraints lesson in the previous course made the same point: a limit stated clearly is a promise kept.
A shorter menu or service list at the peak works because it cuts the minutes each order takes. Choose the items to keep by two measures: how often they are ordered at the peak, and how long they take. Keep the popular, quick items; drop the slow ones that few people order then. A made-to-order sandwich that takes four minutes and sells three an hour at lunch can return at two o'clock without anyone missing it.
Tell customers plainly, with the peak hours on the menu: 'Noon to 1 pm: express menu'. People accept a shorter list when they understand it means a shorter wait. Then check the effect: time the register and the kitchen during the peak and confirm capacity actually rose.
Write every predictable peak on one calendar: the daily ones (lunch, school pickup), the weekly ones (Saturday morning, Monday drop-offs), the monthly ones (month-end move-outs) and the yearly ones (spring, holidays, tax season). Next to each, note last time's arrivals, the capacity, the plan used and how it worked.
Look at the calendar a month ahead, so extra people can be booked and trained, stock ordered and customers told about early slots. A business that plans its peaks from a calendar rarely has an emergency it could have seen coming; most of its rushes are simply busy days that were planned for.
A small tax preparation office in Denver knows its peak to the day: the last three weeks before the April filing deadline bring about 60 percent of the year's individual returns. For years the two preparers simply worked late, and every April some clients waited a week for an appointment and a few went elsewhere.
The owner measured the peak from the previous year's appointment book: about 240 returns in those three weeks, against capacity for about 180 with two preparers working normal hours. She closed the gap of 60 with a mix. A seasonal preparer, hired and trained in January, added capacity for about 45. An early-bird offer, 25 dollars off for returns completed by mid-March, moved about 30 clients out of the peak. A drop-off service, where clients left documents and came back for a signature, cut each appointment by a third.
The next April, the longest wait for an appointment was two days, and nobody worked past seven.
Many industries move demand with prices: electricity companies charge more at peak hours, airlines charge more on busy days, and some restaurants offer early-evening menus. A small business can do the same in a modest way, with a discount for off-peak slots, as long as the prices are stated clearly in advance.
Peaks are emergencies. Predictable peaks can be planned in advance.
Add staff for the whole day. Add capacity for the hours that need it.
The only answer is more capacity. Moving demand and narrowing the offer often cost less.
Hard work gets us through. Heroics are the absence of a plan.
Any shift in demand is a success. Not if customers leave instead of moving.
Measure the peak.
$30 \text{ bikes in the first sunny week}$
From last year's tickets.
Note the capacity.
$18 \text{ bikes that week}$
One mechanic.
Work out the gap.
$30 - 18 = 12$
Bikes.
Add capacity for the peak.
$\text{a second mechanic: 9 more}$
Booked in advance.
Move the rest.
$\text{March slots at a discount: at least 3}$
Gap closed.
Measure the peak.
$18 \text{ move-outs in the last five days}$
A typical month.
Note the capacity.
$12 \text{ cleans in those days}$
The usual team.
Work out the gap.
$18 - 12 = 6$
Cleans.
Add capacity for the peak.
$\text{two extra cleaners: 4 more}$
For those five days only.
Move some demand out.
$\text{earlier slots, 10 dollars off: aim for 2}$
Gap closed.
Review the plan afterwards.
$\text{3 took early slots; nobody turned away}$
Ready for next month.
Measure the peak.
$72 \text{ an hour, noon to 1 pm}$
From register receipts.
Note the capacity.
$60 \text{ an hour}$
One register.
Work out the gap.
$72 - 60 = 12$
Customers an hour.
Move some demand.
$\text{pre-orders at 11:30: about 8}$
Arrivals fall to 64.
Narrow the offer.
$\text{short menu: register serves 70}$
Each order quicker.
Check the plan.
$70 > 64$
Capacity above arrivals, with room.
Review the plan afterwards.
$\text{no line; sales unchanged}$
Demand moved, not lost.
Work out the gap: 90 arrive an hour, one register serves 30.
$90 - 30 = 60$
Customers an hour.
Size the registers needed.
$90 \div 30 = 3$
To stop the line growing.
Choose a cheaper mix.
Neighborhood Kitchen is planning for its noon-to-1 pm peak. Sort each idea by the kind of response it is.
| Adds capacity at the peak | Moves demand out of the peak | Narrows the offer during the peak | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open a second register from noon to 1 pm | |||
| Offer pre-orders to collect at 11:30 | |||
| Serve a shorter menu from noon to 1 pm | |||
| A part-time helper from 11:45 |
Complete the worked solution: at the peak of the Christmas market, about $76$ customers an hour reach Monica's stall, and one register serves $32$ an hour. Find the gap with one register, what two registers serve, and how many customers an hour must be moved out of the peak if she opens two.
Find the gap with one register.
$(\text{arrivals}) - (\text{one register}) =$ g
How fast the line would grow.
Find what two registers serve.
$(\text{one register}) \times \text{two} =$ c
Capacity added at the peak.
Find the demand still to move.
$(\text{arrivals}) - (\text{two registers}) =$ m
Customers an hour to shift out of the peak.
Say how to move them.
$\text{pre-packed bags from a front table}$
Fewer reach the registers.
Bright Home Cleaning plans for the end-of-month rush of move-out cleans. Put the planning steps in order.
Number the steps in order (write the number in the box):
Northside Repairs gets about $18$ more bikes than usual in the first sunny week of spring, every year. Which is a plan for that peak?
At the Christmas fair, about $120$ customers an hour reach Maya's stall, and one register serves $30$ an hour. She has $5$ card readers she could put on registers. For which numbers of registers $n$ will the line not grow?
This task has no paper form; do it on a device.
An ice cream shop in Boston gets about $112$ customers an hour between 7 and 9 pm on summer evenings. Each scooper serves a customer in about $2$ minutes. How many scoopers does the shop need on for those hours so the line does not grow?
Answer:
A coffee kiosk gets about $70$ customers between 8 and 9 am and can serve $31$ in that hour, with no room for a second machine. Complete the sentence.
About m customers need to be moved out of the 8 am hour.
Lesson test: one question per skill, one attempt each, no hints. Your answers are checked when you submit.
Monica expects $107$ customers an hour at the peak of the Christmas market. One register serves $34$ an hour. Fill in the serving capacity and the gap left each hour, with one register and with two.
| Can serve an hour | Gap an hour | |
|---|---|---|
| One register | ||
| Two registers |
You can plan for the rush you know is coming instead of surviving it. Tell someone why a second register for one hour beats a second person all day. Next: when to reorder stock.
20. Your turn: Maya's Christmas fair, step 3
$\text{two registers and 30 bags pre-sold}$
Capacity added, demand moved.