Castner Corporation is considering implementation of a JIT inventory system. The company's industrial engineer recently conducted a study to determine the average number of days spent in each activity of the production process. The following table summarizes her findings:
Production Activity Number of Days
Inspecting materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Storing materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Moving materials into production . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Setting up production equipment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Cutting materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Bending materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Assembling finished products . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Painting finished products . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Instructions
a. Identify Castner's value-added production activities.
b. Identify Castner's non-value-added production activities.
c. Calculate Castner's total cycle time.
d. Determine Castner's manufacturing efficiency ratio.
e. Which of the above activities might be reduced or eliminated if Castner implemented a JIT system?
e. What ethical issues might be related to eliminating some of the non-value-added activities?