IE 56600: Production Management Control Summer 2022

Homework #1 (Total: 100 points)

1. (Ch.4.15): What is the “magic” of Kanban? Is it the fact that stock is pulled from one
station to the next, or is it something more fundamental? (5 pt, Hint: one sentence
answer)

2. (Ch. 4.19): What is the fundamental difference between a pull production system and a
push production system? (5 pt, Hint: two sentences answer)

3. (Ch. 4.20): In a serial production line, at which station (first, last, middle, etc.) would it be
best to have the bottleneck in a push system? Where in a pull system? Explain your
reasoning. (5 pt, Hint: two sentences answer, a longer explanation)

4. In this Causal Loop Diagram, please find the following: (5 pt, Hint: simple answers)

a) Define two types of feedback loops

b) How many Negative (balancing) feedback loops?
c) How many Positive (reinforcing) feedback loops?
d) What is R loop stand for?
e) What is B loop stand for?
IE 56600: Production Management Control Summer 2022

5. In this Stock and Flow Diagram, please find the following:

Please identify the “stock” variables in this model. (5 pt, Hint: 4)

6. (Ch.7.5 Study): Can the critical WIP level W 0 ever exceed the number of machines in
the line? (5 pt, Hint: Two sentences answer)

7. (Ch.7.2 Prob): Consider a three-station line with single-machine stations. The average
processing times on stations 1,2,3 are 15, 12, and 14 minutes, respectively. However,
station 2 is subject to random failures, which cause its fraction of uptime (availability) to
be only 75 percent. (20 pt, Hint: quantitative answers)
(a) Which station is the bottleneck of this line?
(b) What are the bottleneck rate rb, raw process time T0, and critical WIP W0 for the
line?
(c) If availability of station 2 is reduced to 50 percent, what happens to the critical WIP
W0? Briefly describe the likely impacts of this change.

8. (Ch.7.4 Prob): A print shop runs a two-station binding line, in which the first station
punches holes in the pages and the second station installs the binders. On average, the
punch machine can process 15,000 pages per hour, while the binder can process
10,000 pages per hour. The shop receives work that requires both punching and binding
at a rate of 8,000 pages per hour. It also receives work requiring only punching at a rate
of 5,000 pages per hour. Which station is the bottleneck of this line and why? (20 pt,
Hint: quantitative answers)
IE 56600: Production Management Control Summer 2022

9. (Ch.7.10 Prob): Floor-On. Ltd., operates a line that produces self-adhesive tiles. This
line consists of single-machine stations and is almost balanced (i.e. station rates are
nearly equal). A manufacturing engineer has estimated the bottleneck rate of the line to
be 2,000 cases per 16-hour day and the raw process time to be 30 minutes. The line has
averaged 1,700 cases per day, and cycle time has averaged 3.5 hours. (30 pt, Hint:
quantitative answers)

(a) What would you estimate average WIP level to be?

(b) How does this performance compare to the practical worst case?
(c) What would happen to the throughput of the line if we increased capacity at a non-
bottleneck station and held WIP constant at its current level?
(d) What would happen to the throughput of the line if we replaced a single-machine
station with four machines whose capacity equaled that of the single machine and
held the WIP constant at its current level?
(e) What would happen to the throughput of the line if we began moving cases of tiles
between stations in large batches instead of one at a time?