Question

Hello, could you please answer and explain the questions BELOW and please explain in great detail to how you got each answer by explaining it to me step by step, please. thanks!

Question - You are analyzing a tea bag production line. (You just love tea.)
There are five processes, labeled A through E, and your tea bags start at Process A, then go to Process B, C, D, and E. The process map looks a bit like this:
Start -> A -> B -> C -> D -> E -> Finish. You have the following process information:
Process A requires 14 minutes per tea bag. Process B can do 4.8 tea bags per hour. Process C can make 3.4 tea bags per hour. Process D does 33.1 tea bags per 8-hour shift. Process E requires 6.33 minutes per tea bag.

• Which process is the bottleneck? (Please enter A, B, C, D, E, or cannot tell.)

• If you tied yourself to a tea bag just as it started Process A, how many minutes later would you find yourself done with Process E? minutes. (Please round to the nearest integer; if you would like to enter 12.345, please type in a 12.)

• Would it help make more tea bags per day if we could speed up Process D by one minute per tea bag? (Please enter yes or no and explain).

Question - The production processes in Chapter 7 include four major types: process focus, repetitive focus, product focus, and mass customization. Consider Anytown USA’s general hospital. The manager claims he is using a process focus. He says that is the best way to do a hospital business, because it focuses on specific activities, uses general purpose equipment (such as surgical suites or X-ray machines), has a high degree of product flexibility (anything from strokes to car accidents to well-baby clinics), and planning and scheduling is a huge challenge. Costs are really high.

An Operations Management consultant suggests that the hospital manager move away from a process focus and into one of the other three (repetitive focus, product focus, or mass customization.)

• Do you agree that the hospital should move away from a process focus and onto one of the others?
• Why or why not? If they should move, which one should it be to? If they should remain a process focus, why?

Question - Chapter 7 covered process strategy and sustainability. Consider some denim blue jeans. Below are three ways to manufacture that pair of jeans.

* process focus, * product focus, * mass customization focus.

For each of these three ways, please describe the volume, level of variety, and any other relevant details.

If you could accomplish it, which strategy is likely to be the most difficult to implement for blue jeans? How would you do it anyways? Be specific in your answer.

Question - We are thinking about layout strategies for production now. This is a problem about workstation layout.

A firm must produce 40 units/day during an 8-hour workday. Tasks, times, and predecessor activities are given below. You want to group the tasks below into workstations, each workstation staffed by one person.

Task	Time (Minutes)	Predecessor(s)
A	2	-
B	2	A
C	8	-
D	6	C
E	3	B
F	10	D, E
G	4	F
H	3	G
Total	38 minutes

                       

A) What is the cycle time you would need in order to produce your target of 40 units during 8 hours?

B) Use the cycle time you computed in part A above. What is the minimum number of workstations you would need in order to achieve this cycle time at all workstations?

C) Suggest a workstation grouping which would work. In your answer, clearly specify which tasks you would assign to which station. For example, you might want to put Tasks A, B, C, and D together in Workstation 1. Determine the cycle time and the appropriate number of workstations to produce the 40 units per day.

Question - Susan has a part-time business producing seasonal plywood yard ornaments for resale at local craft fairs and bazaars. She currently works 8 hours per day to produce 20 ornaments.

a. What is her productivity?

b. She thinks that by redesigning the ornaments and switching from use of a wood glue to a hot-glue gun she can increase her total production to 30 ornaments per day. What is her new productivity?

c. What is her percentage increase in productivity?

Question - Which is NOT true regarding differences between goods and services? Explain why.

1. Tangible goods are generally produced and consumed simultaneously; services are not.
2. Most goods are common to many customers; services are often unique to the final customer.
3. Services tend to have a more inconsistent product definition than goods.
4. Services tend to have higher customer interaction than goods.   
5. None, i.e., All of these are true.

Answer 1

Time taken by each process

A- 14 minutes

B-60/4.8= 12.5 minutes

C- 60/3.4= 17.6 minutes

D-480/33.1= 14.5 minutes

E- 6.33 minutes

None of the process seems to be bottleneck because time taken by each activity are more or less same.

Process E will be completed after= 14+12.5+17.6+14.5+6.33 =65 minutes

Yes we can save 13.5 minutes from D so it will reach faster to process E.