Introduction
Fitness Plus is a full-service fitness club that has sustained tremendous growth since its opening. Recently, management became aware of overcrowding and unavailability of equipment in certain areas and is now trying to determine how to properly evaluate the situation and decide if there is enough room at the current building to properly service existing members or to open a larger facility in another location.
Existing operations
Management needs specific information to estimate how well the existing capacity of the building is being utilized by members and to decide the capacity utilization rate of the club to reveal if they are utilizing their space efficiently.
Fitness Plus knows their most popular activities are in the following areas:
1) Aerobics room accommodates 35 people per class; 30% of members use.
2) Free weight room; 20% of members use.
3) 24-piece Nautilus equipment room; 25% of members use.
4) Cardiovascular room containing 29 pieces of equipment (9 stair-steppers, 6 treadmills, 6 life-cycle bikes, 3 air-dyne bikes, 2 cross-aerobic machines, 2 rowing machines, and one climber); 40% of members use.
Also there is space for 8 racquetball courts, which 15% of members use, and 6 tennis courts, which 10% of members use.
Analyzing growth
In five year’s time, growth went up 2 times during peak hours, and 1-½ times during slow hours. Growth has gone up 1-2/3 times overall.
Fitness Plus Capacity 3
1992
660 hours open during week
Slow time – average 6-8 people/hour
Peak – average 40 people/hour
9,990 people working out/week (15 people per hour average/open hours)
1997
660 hours open during week
Slow time – average 10 people/hour
Peak – average 80 people/hour
16,500 people working out/week (25 people per hour average/open hours)
Measuring Existing Utilization
The areas where most bottlenecks occur during peak hours are