Question

Question: The following represents a process used to assemble a chair with an upholstered seat. Stations A, B, and C make the seat; stations J, K, and L assemble the chair frame; station X is where the two subassemblies are brought together; and some final tasks are completed in stations Y and Z. One worker is assigned to each of the stations. The line is paced using a countdown clock to synchronize production at each station.

Generally there is no inventory kept anywhere in the system, although there is

room for one unit between each of the stations that might be used for a brief amount of time.

Given the following amount of work in seconds required at each station:

a	38	j	32	x	22
b	34	k	30	y	18
c	35	l	34	z	20

a. What is the possible daily output of this “process” if 8 hours of processing time is available each day?

b. Given your output rate in part (a), what is the efficiency of the process?

c. What is the flow time of the process?

Short answer

Answer

The bottleneck station determines the daily production of a line (highest processing time station in current case).

Step-by-step solution

Step 1:(a)The possible daily output of this “process” if 8 hours of processing time is available each day is

Calculate the daily output potential using the calculation presented below.

$$\begin{gathered} \text{Dailyoutput=}\frac{Avariableprocessingtime}{processingtime} \\ \text{=}\frac{\text{8hour×60minutes×60seconds}}{38seconds} \\ \text{=757.89units} \end{gathered}$$

The line has a maximum capacity of 757.89 units.

(b) Efficiency of the process is

Calculate the above process' efficiency using the following formula:

$$\begin{gathered} \text{Efficiency=}\frac{Sumofallthetime}{Numberofstations\times proces\sin gatthebottleneck} \\ =\frac{263}{9\times 38} \\ =0.7690r76.9\% \end{gathered}$$

The efficiency is 76.9%.

(c) The flow time of the process is

$$\begin{gathered} \text{Flowtime=Timeatthebottleneck×Numberofstationslongestpath} \\ =386\times 6 \\ =228seconds \end{gathered}$$

The flow time is 228 seconds.