Question

A system has five workstations (A, B, C, D, and E) connected in sequence, with process times of 5, 10, 4, 9, and 8 seconds per unit each, respectively.  Each workstation contains a single machine.

1. which workstation is the bottleneck of the system:

          a.   Workstation A

          b.   Workstation B

          c.   Workstation C

          d.   Workstation D

2. the system process time of this process is:

          a.   5.1 seconds                                                                             

          b.   10 seconds

          c.   15 seconds

          d.   36 seconds

3. assume Workstation B now contains two machines, each of which can process a 1 unit every 10 seconds.  What is the throughput time of this process?

          a.   9 seconds                                                                                

          b.   10 seconds

          c.   36 seconds

          d.   46 seconds

Answer 1

Answer:1
workstation B  is the bottleneck with the lowest per-minute process capacity of 6 units

Workstation (Step)	time in Seconds per unit	No. of machines	process capacity (units per second)= No. of workers/task time	process capacity per minute= 60/(process time)
A	5	1	0.20	12.00
B	10	1	0.10	6.00	Bottleneck
C	4	1	0.25	15.00
D	9	1	0.11	6.67
E	8	1	0.13	7.50
Total	36

Bottleneck = Process with the least Capacity per minute


Answer 2
Process cycle time =slowest of all processes = 10 seconds

Answer 3

Workstation (Step)	time in Seconds per unit	No. of machines	process capacity (units per second)= No. of workers/task time	process capacity per minute= 60/(process time)
A	5	1	0.20	12.00
B	10	2	0.20	12.00
C	4	1	0.25	15.00
D	9	1	0.11	6.67	Bottleneck
E	8	1	0.13	7.50
Total	36

Throughput time is the sum of all workstation times =A+B+C+D+E = 36 seconds
And it remains the same, although a new workstation has been added, but the total time the product takes from A to reach E remains the same.

Dear Student,
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