9.11 Stanford Rosenberg Computing wants to
establish an assembly line for producing a new product, the Personal
Digital Assistant (PDA). The tasks, task times, and immediate
predecessors for the tasks are as follows: Rosenberg’s goal is to
produce 180 PDAs per hour.
a) What is the cycle time?
b) What is the theoretical minimum for the number of workstations that Rosenberg can achieve in this assembly line?
c) Can the theoretical minimum actually be reached when workstations are assigned?
9.13 Sue Helms Appliances wants to establish an
assembly line to manufacture its new product, the Micro Popcorn Popper.
The goal is to produce five poppers per hour. The tasks, task times, and
immediate predecessors for producing one Micro Popcorn Popper are as
follows:
a) What is the theoretical minimum for the smallest number of workstations that Helms can achieve in this assembly line?
b) Graph the assembly line and assign workers to workstations. Can you assign them with the theoretical minimum?
c) What is the efficiency of your assignment?
9.15 The following table details the tasks required
for Indiana-based Frank Pianki Industries to manufacture a fully
portable industrial vacuum cleaner. The times in the table are in
minutes. Demand forecasts indicate a need to operate with a cycle time
of 10 minutes.
a) Draw the appropriate precedence diagram for this production line.
b) Assign tasks to workstations and determine how much idle time is present each cycle.
c) Discuss how this balance could be improved to 100%.
d) What is the theoretical minimum number of workstations?
