Question

Rockness Recycling refurbishes rundown business students. The process uses a moving belt, which carries each student through the five steps of the process in sequence. The five steps are as follows:

STEP	DESCRIPTION	TIME REQUIRED PER STUDENT
1	Unpack and place on belt	0.2	minute
2	Strip off bad habits	0.4	minute
3	Scrub and clean mind	0.6	minute
4	Insert modern methods	0.8	minute
5	Polish and pack	1.0	minutes

One faculty member is assigned to each of these steps. Faculty members work a 40-hour week and rotate jobs each week. Mr. Rockness has been working on a contract from General Eclectic, which requires delivery of 2,500 refurbished students per week. A representative of the human resources department has just called complaining that the company hasn’t been receiving the agreed-upon number of students. A check of finished goods inventory by Mr. Rockness reveals that there is no stock left.

a. Calculate the maximum output for each step.

b. Which step is the bottleneck?

• step5

• step1

• step2

• step3

• step4

Answer 1

a.
Ans -
Max Capacity = 40 hrs x 60 mins = 2400 minutes
Step 1 - minute unpack and place on belt
Time required per student = 0.2 min
Max. Output = 2400/0.2 = 12,000 students per week
Step 2 - strip off bad habits
Time required per student = 0.4 min
Max. Output = 2400/0.4 = 6,000 students per week
Step 3 - scrub and clean mind
Time required per student = 0.6 min
Max. Output = 2400/0.6 = 4,000 students per week
Step 4 - insert modern methods
Time required per student =0.8 min
Max. Output = 2400/0.8 = 3000 students per week
Step 5 - polish and pack
Time required per student =1 min
Max. Output = 2400/1 = 2400 students per week
b.
Ans -
Bottleneck: Least capacity in process = STEP 5
Process cannot create > what bottleneck is, so 2400 is max capacity for process as a whole.