General Cho’s breakfast cereal, popular in Asia, consists of a mixture of soy-granola nuggets with wheat crisps. To produce this cereal, the producing company utilizes separate production processes for the soy-granola nuggets and the wheat crisps, blends these two products together, dispenses the final product in 14-ounce boxes, and seals the boxes. The company is able to produce 270 pounds of nuggets each hour. The wheatcrisp making machine produces a 7-pound batch of wheat crisps every 6 minutes. Nuggets and wheat crisps are mixed together in a 6:1 ratio (i.e., 6 pounds of nuggets for every 1 pound of crisps) to create the final cereal. The box-filling machine is capable of dispensing cereal at the rate of 340 pounds per hour. The final piece of machinery can label one box every 8 seconds. (Note: There are 16 ounces in a pound.)
a) Create a process flow diagram (showing each of the major steps, and a description of their capacity).
b) What is the capacity of the soy-granola nugget making step? Report all capacities in cereal boxes/hr.
c) What is the capacity of the labeling step?
d) What is the capacity of the overall process in cereal boxes/hr?