Question: "This should be a simple issue. You know that our average weekly sales are $2,000 and the flow time is one day. Surely with this information, you should have no problem maintaining an inventory level of $200 to serve the sales." With these words, the director of finance leaves your office. Now, you have a challenge before you-that of determining whether the analysis carried out by the director makes sense.
a. Using Little's Law, determine anticipated flow time and compare it with the expected flow time.
b. Keeping the flow times and throughputs constant, determine if the process as currently described can be supported by $200 of inventory. If not, what options should you consider?