Question

A service has five tasks, performed in sequence. In the instance when there is more than one worker assigned to a task, each worker performs the entire task and they both can be working on different “items” at the same time.

Task	Task time per worker	Number of workers
1	2 minutes	1
2	6 minutes	1
3	14 minutes	2
4	4 minutes	1
5	15 minutes	3

1. What is the capacity (hourly) of the process as a whole?
2. What is the bottleneck of the process?
3. What is the throughput time (assuming no wait time)?
4. Where would you expect customers to wait?

Answer 1

Ans a-The hourly capacity of the process as a whole is 75.54 Pieces/Hour.

The calculation is as given

Capacity is total worker/Total time taken so for 5 processes the time taken is 2,6,14,4 and 15 minutes and workers required for same task 1,1,2,1 & 3 so the capacity in minutes will be,1/2+1/6+2/14+1/4+3/15=1.259 so total for 1 hour will be 1.259*60 Minutes =75.54 Pieces/Hour

Ans b-The bottleneck is process C because it has lowest capacity per hour.i.e Capacity of 8.5Pieces only

Ans c-Throughput time is the time for whole process completion which is in this case is 41Minute.

Ans d-Customer will wait at process number 4 which has 4Minute for the work completion. which is early for next process.