Problem:
1. Some tasks and the order in which they must be performed according to their assembly requirements are shown in the following table. These are to be combined into workstations to create an assembly line. The assembly line operates 71⁄2 hours per day. The output requirement is 1,000 units per day.
Preceding Time Preceding Time
Task Tasks (Seconds) Task Tasks (Seconds)
A - 15 G C 11
B A 24 H D 9
C A 6 I E 14
D B 12 J F, G 7
E B 18 K H, I 15
F C 7 L J, K 10
a. What is the workstation cycle time required to produce 1,000 units per day?
b. Balance the line using the longest task time based on the 1,000-unit forecast, stating which tasks would be done in each workstation.
c. For (b), what is the efficiency of your line balance, assuming it is running at the cycle time from part (a)?
d. After production was started, Marketing realized that it understated demand and must increase output to 1,100 units. What action would you take? Be specific and quantitative in your answer.
2. An initial solution has been given to the following workcenter layout problem. Given the flows described and a cost of $2.00 per unit per foot, compute the total cost for the layout. Each location is 100 feet long and 50 feet wide as shown in the following figure.
Use the centers of departments for distances and measure distance using metropolitan rectilinear distance.
Department
A B C D
A 0 10 25 55 1009 1009 1009
Department B 0 10 5 509 A B C 509
C 0 15
D 509
D 0