A Printed Circuit Board (PCB) machine installs integrated circuits onto a board. Before starting to produce a board, the PCB machine requires a 19 minute setup. Once in production, the PCB machine requires only 0.20 minutes per board.
a. Currently, the PCB machine produces 600 boards between setups. Given this operating process, what is the capacity of the PCB machine ( in boards per min)?
b. Currently, the PCB machine produces 600 boards between setups. Given this operating process, what is the utilization of the PCB machine?
c. Demand for boards occurs at the rate of 4 boards per minute. What is the smallest batch size such that the PCB machine does not constrain the flow rate through the process?