Week 3 Assignment

You are to prepare answers to the following based on the information in the text. Throughout this course, the primary source of information to answer homework questions should be the textbook. Cases are valued at 25 points each and questions/problems are valued at 5 points each.

Chapter 6: Toshiba’s Notebook Computer Assembly Line (page 199). Answer all six questions in the textbook.

1. What is the daily capacity of the assembly line designed by the engineers? Assume that the assembly line has a computer at every position when it is started at the beginning of the day.

 

The line operates for 7.5 hours per day.  Workstation 9 is the bottleneck in the initial line balance, limiting the cycle time to 2 minutes, so output is limited to 30 units/ hours * 7.5 hours = 225 units per day.

 

2. When it is running at maximum capacity, what is the efficiency of the line relative to its use of labor? Assume that the “supporter” is not included in efficiency calculations.

 

 

3. How should the line be redesigned to operate at the initial 250 units per day target, assuming that no overtime will be used? What is the efficiency of your new design?

 

 

All current stations are under that cycle time except for station 6 (position 9).  Because of the precedence relationships for tasks 16 and 17, they must be split across two stations to meet the new cycle time.  A simple way to meet this cycle time is to just put task 17 into position 10 and add an additional worker.  The efficiency of this solution is:

 

4. What about running the line at 300 units per day? If overtime were used with the engineers’ initial design, how much time would the line need to be run each day?

 

With the original design, output is 30 units per hour. To reach output of 300 units would require 2.5 hours of overtime per day.

 

5. The cycle time to meet this production rate without overtime is:

 

 

This may be possible with a redesigned line, but we might not have enough Line Positions to accommodate the new design.

 

6. The total costs of the various options should be considered. For example, is it less expensive to work overtime to meet increased demand or to add another workstation requiring another full-time worker?  Also, the quality of demand forecasts should be assessed.  Redesigning the line to achieve higher output will be expensive, and should not be done unless there is strong confidence in demand forecasts.  Finally, the cost of redesigning the line once it is operational and resultant downtime should be considered.  A thorough analysis of demand and line design options should be performed to minimize the risk of having to redesign the line once operational in the near future.  Perhaps the best option would be the balance from part 3, allowing maximum production of about 273 per day with no overtime, and the ability to reach 300 units per day with less than one hour overtime per day.

 

Chapter 7: Review and Discussion Question number 2 (page 234).

2. Identify the high-contact and low-contact operations of the following services:
3. A dental office.

High contact includes waiting rooms, receptionists, dentist(s), hygienist(s), x-ray, etc., while low contact would be the labs.

1. An airline.

High contact includes reservations desk, loading concourse, plane with crew and attendants, etc.  Low contact would be maintenance, baggage handling, and tower operations.

1. An accounting office.

High contact includes reception and CPAs, while low contact would be records, computer, and library.

1. An automobile agency

High contact includes showroom and offices, while low contact would be maintenance, preparation, and records-files.

1. com

High contact includes web-site, customer service dept., and logistics service provider while the low contact would be book storing, picking, and receiving.