Question

. Bill builds benches in a small shop and he plans to operate five 8-hour days per week. Each bench has two ends and a top. It takes 5 minutes to cut and sand each end and 2 minutes to make each top. Assembly requires 8 minutes per bench, and painting requires 5 minutes per bench. Bill has one employee who makes the tops and ends. Bill will do the final assembly and painting. He also plans 1 hour per day for setup and teardown for each department. a. How many benches should he plan to build per week?
How many hours per week are required for each person?
c. Suggest ways to increase the number of benches produced per week.

Answer 1

Number of hours available on a day = 5 hours

Hours required for Set-Up & Teardown of Department = 1 hours

Number of hours left for production on a day = 4 hours

Numbers of hours left for production in a week = 4*5 = 20 hours

The entire production can be visualized as two units. With first unit responsible for Cutting and Sanding of Ends and Tops and another comprising Assembly & Painting of Bench.

The Time take by Cutting & Sanding unit = Number of ends*Time taken by each ends + Number of Tops*Time taken by each Tops = 2*5+2 = 12 minutes

Time Taken by Assembly & Painting unit = Time taken for Assembly + Time taken for Painting = 8+5 = 13 Minutes.

It can be clearly seen that the Assembly & Painting Unit is the the bottle neck of the process. Thus cycle time of the process is 13 minutes

A) No. of benches he should plan to build over a week = Time Available for production/ Cycle Time = 20*60/13 = 92.3 ~ 92 benches

B) Assumption - The 5 hours of Setup and tear down is not be accounted in any employees's quota

Works per week required from the employee = Number benches * Time of Activity = 92*12 = 1104 minutes = 18.4 hours

Works per week required from the Bill= Number benches * Time of Activity = 92*13 = 1196 minutes = 19.93 hours

C) We can possibly see that there are two major reason limiting the production. The Setup & Tear down time is very high compared to the proportion of actual production time. Thus Bill should put in extra efforts or hire another employee to help him with the Setup & Tear down activity. In addition to this, we can also improve the cycle time by acting upon the bottleneck activity. Hence, either employing another person for Assembling & painting of bench or by improving the process will help him produce more number of benches.

Please Like & Provide your reviews in comments. :-)