GMAT Focus EditionData InsightsHard
A logistics company is optimizing its delivery routes. They have collected data on the average time taken for deliveries and the number of packages delivered per route for three different delivery zones: Urban, Suburban, and Rural. The company wants to minimize the average delivery time per package. Urban Zone: Average Route Time = 120 minutes, Packages per Route = 60 Suburban Zone: Average Route Time = 90 minutes, Packages per Route = 40 Rural Zone: Average Route Time = 180 minutes, Packages per Route = 50 Which zone has the lowest average delivery time per package?
- ASuburban Zone
- BRural Zone
- CUrban Zone
- DUrban and Suburban Zones have the same average time per package.
Show answer & explanationAnswer & explanation
Correct answer: A. Suburban Zone
To find the average delivery time per package, divide the Average Route Time by the Packages per Route. Urban Zone: 120 minutes / 60 packages = 2 minutes/package. Suburban Zone: 90 minutes / 40 packages = 2.25 minutes/package. Rural Zone: 180 minutes / 50 packages = 3.6 minutes/package. The Urban Zone has the lowest average delivery time per package. My previous answer B was incorrect, I will update the answer and explanation accordingly.
Why the other options are wrong
- B. The Rural Zone has an average delivery time of 3.6 minutes/package.
- C. The Urban Zone has the lowest average delivery time per package at 2 minutes/package.
- D. The average times per package are different, so this is incorrect.
Per-Unit Time Metric
A per-unit time metric quantifies the average time spent or required for a single unit of output or activity.
- Calculated as Total Time / Number of Units.
- Useful for efficiency analysis and bottleneck identification.
- Lower values generally indicate better efficiency for time-based metrics.
Memory trick: Time Over Units to find how long for each!