Three technicians handle 18 outages in 6 hours. What is the average outages per hour per technician?

• A. 0.5
• B. 1
• C. 1.5
• D. 2

Answer: (B)

Think in terms of rate as total output divided by total input. When several workers are involved, you multiply the number of workers by the time they work to get the total effort, then divide the total outputs by that effort to get the rate per worker per hour. Here, three technicians work for six hours, giving eighteen technician-hours of effort. The team handles eighteen outages in that time, so the rate is eighteen outages divided by eighteen technician-hours, which equals one outage per technician-hour. In other words, each technician handles about one outage each hour on average. Quick check: the team solves about three outages per hour (eighteen outages in six hours), and with three technicians, that’s three divided among three technicians, again yielding one outage per technician per hour.