A load of laundry is defined as how many clothes may be fit into a single washer or dryer. The average number of loads (and the standard deviation) a student has at each laundry event is set as a parameter. The minimum number of loads a student may have is one. The maximum number of loads a student may have is limited by the number of machines in the room. If the student has more loads than physically present machines, it is assumed the student will compress multiple loads into an acceptable number of loads.
Once a student arrives, it assumed that a first-in-first-out queue is established for both washers and dryers. No preemption is allowed. If there are enough idle machines available to accommodate the first student in line's loads, then those machines are immediately put into use. If there are not enough idle machines are available, the first student will wait until enough machines become available.
Machine service times are constants set as parameters. It is assumed that after a machine is done servicing a load, additional time is spent by the student unloading the laundry from the machine. The amount of time the student takes to do this will vary according to a normal distribution. The average and standard deviation of this distribution are set as parameters to the simulation. The minimum amount of time spent on this task is zero minutes.
It is assumed that machines never go out of service.