FACULTY OF ENGINEERING, UZ.

DEPARTMENT OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERING

BACHELOR OF SCIENCE HONOURS IN MECHANICAL ENGINEERING PART III

COURSE: INDUSTRIAL SYSTEMS ENGINEERING

DUE DATE 13 NOVEMBER 2020

CODE: ME305 ASSIGNMENTS 2020 0CTOBER

Q1. The quality characteristic for certain individual items of output from a high volume process has
been specified to be 20 + 5 units. Samples were taken every hour and the results are shown below:-

Sample No. Measurements (X)

-------------- ----------------------

1 21.4 20.3 18.6

2 20.4 21.8 20.5

3 21.7 21.6 25.1

4 19.6 22.6 20.2

5 21.1 25.4 18.3

6 21.0 18.8 20.2

7 21.5 20.0 19.4

8 19.4 22.6 21.0

9 20.9 21.1 20.7

 10 20.9 16.3 21.6

a) Calculate and set up trial limit control charts for X and R. [11 marks]

b) Assess whether the process appears to be in statistical control. [5 marks]

c) Determine the Process Capability Ratio and indicate how you could improve on the capability
of the process to improve on quality conformance. [5 marks]

d) If the customer required conformance of up to about 95% what would you expect to be the
approximate minimum tolerance possible from the process to be in statistical control.
[4 marks]

Appendix Q2

n A2 D3 D4 d2

2 1.88 0 3.267 1.128

3 1.023 0 2.574 1.693

4 0.729 0 2.282 2.059

5 0.577 0 2.115 2.326

6 0.483 0 2.004 2.534

Q2.
The projects A and B have the following expected cash flows:
____________________________________________
Year Project A Project B
____________________________________________
0 -$400 000 -$400 000
1 160 000 90 000
2 160 000 140 000
3 160 000 220 000
4 160 000 200 000
____________________________________________

The discount rate is 13%.

a) What are the NPVs of the two projects? [9 marks]

b) What are the IRRs for the two projects? [8 marks]
c) What are the discounted payback periods for the two projects? [5 marks]
d) Which project should be accepted and Why? [5 marks]

Discount factors
Year 10% 13% 15%
1 0.9091 0.8850 0.8696
2 0.8265 0.7832 0.7561
3 0.7513 0.6931 0.6575
4 0.6830 0.6026 0.5718
5 0.6209 0.5309 0.4972

Q3

a. Explain why forecasting is important to an organisation. [4]

b. The dean of the University of Zimbabwe must plan his school’s course offering for the
fall semester. Student demands deem it necessary to offer at least 30 undergraduate and 20
graduate courses in the term. Faculty contracts also dictate that at least 60 courses be
offered in total. Each undergraduate course taught costs the college an average of $2,500 in
faculty wages, while each graduate course costs $3,000. Formulate the linear programming
problem and use the graphical method to determine how many undergraduate and
graduate courses the dean should schedule. [5]

c. Two products, X and Y, both require processing times on machines M1 and M2. Machine
M1 has 200 hours available and machine M2 has 400 hours available. Product X requires
one hour on machine M1 and four hours on machine M2. Product Y requires one hour on
machine M1 and one hour on machine M2. Each unit of product X yields $10 profit and
each unit of Y yields $5 profit.
Use the Graphical method or otherwise to find a solution that will maximise profit. [12]

d. State four advantages of decision tree analysis. [4]

Four advantages of decision tree analysis:
1. They enable to obtain a visual portrayal of sequential decisions, i.e. they picture a series of
chronological decisions.
2. Decision tree are universal, they make more accurate the structure of the decision process
and facilitate a communication among solvers of the decision problem.
3. Decision tree force the decision maker to appreciate all consequences of his decisions.
4. Construction and analysis of decision trees by means of computers makes possible to
experiment with decision trees and quickly to establish the impact of changes in the input
parameters of the tree on the choice of the best policy.