SMU Classification: Restricted

OPIM 201 – Practice Problem Set 3

1. Consider a process consisting of three resources in a worker-paced line and a wage rate of $10 per hour.
Assume there is unlimited demand for the product.
Resource Processing time (minutes) Number of workers
1 10 2
2 6 1
3 16 3
a) How long does it take the process to produce 100 units starting with an empty system?
b) What is the average labor utilization?
c) What is the average cost of labor for each unit of product?
2. PowerToys Inc. produces a small remote-controlled toy truck on a conveyor belt with nine stations.
Under the current process layout, each station has one worker assigned to it. The line is currently
running at its capacity. Stations and processing times are summarized in the following table:
Station Task Processing Times (seconds)
1 Mount battery units 75
2 Insert remote control receiver 85
3 Insert chip 90
4 Mount front axle 65
5 Mount back axle 70
6 Install electric motor 55
7 Connect motor to battery unit 80
8 Connect motor to rear axle 65
9 Mount plastic body 80
a) What is the bottleneck in this process?
b) What is the capacity, in toy trucks per hour, of the assembly line? What is the system cycle time?
c) What is the average cost of labor for the toy truck with the current process if each worker receives
$15/hour, expressed in dollars per toy truck?
d) What is the utilization of the worker in station 2?
3. A manufacturer of fiberglass fittings is planning to add a new line of smaller fittings, and you have been
asked to develop a balanced line given the following task times and precedence relationships:
Task Time (minutes) Immediate Predecessor(s) Task Time (minutes) Immediate Predecessor(s)
A 0.5 - E 0.6 B
B 0.7 A F 0.2 C
C 1.5 A G 0.4 E
D 0.3 C H 0.3 D, F, G
a) Draw and label a precedence diagram for the above tasks.
b) What is the minimum cycle time?
c) Assuming the cycle time to be used for line-balancing is the minimum cycle time from part b, what is
the theoretical minimum?
d) Assuming the cycle time to be used for line-balancing is the minimum cycle time from part b.
Develop a balanced line using both the longest task time rule. Show the work stations, eligible tasks
for assignment, tasks actually assigned, and idle times.
e) What are the efficiency and balance delay of the actual line balance from above?

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4. An assembly line is to be designed to operate 7.5 hours per day and supply a steady demand of 300 units
per day. Here are the tasks and their performance times:
Task Time (seconds) Immediate Predecessor(s) Task Time (seconds) Immediate Predecessor(s)
A 70 - G 60 D
B 40 - H 50 E
C 45 - I 15 F, G
D 10 A J 25 G
E 30 B K 20 H, I
F 20 C L 25 J, K
a) Draw the precedence diagram.
b) What’s the workstation cycle time?
c) What’s the theoretical minimum number of workstations?
d) Assign tasks to workstations using the longest task time rule. Calculate the line efficiency
e) Suppose demand increases by 12.5 percent. How would you react to this?
5. A manufacturer of fiberglass fittings is planning to add a new line of smaller fittings, and you have been
asked to develop a balanced line given the following task times and precedence relationships:
Task Time (minutes) Immediate Predecessor(s)
A 0.5 -
B 0.7 A
C 1.5 A
D 0.3 C
E 0.6 B
F 0.2 C
G 0.4 E
H 0.3 D, F, G

a) Draw and label a precedence diagram for the above tasks.

b) What is the minimum cycle time?
c) Assuming the cycle time to be used for line-balancing is to be the minimum cycle time from part b,
develop a balanced line using the largest number of followers rule.
6. Francis Johnson’s plant needs to design an efficient assembly line to make a new product. The
assembly line needs to produce 15 units per hour and there is room for only five workstations. The tasks
and the order in which they must be performed are shown in the following table.
Task Time (minutes) Immediate Predecessor(s) Task Time (minutes) Immediate Predecessor(s)
A 1 - E 2 D
B 2 - F 3 D
C 3 - G 1 A, B, E, F
D 3 C
Draw the precedence diagram and balance the line so that at most five stations are required. Use
whatever method you feel is appropriate.

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Solution
1.
a) Resource 1 capacity: 2/10 units/minute = 0.2 units/minute.
Resource 2 capacity: 1/6 units/minute.
Resource 3 capacity: 3/16 units/minute.
Resource 2 is the bottleneck and the process capacity is 1/6 units/minute.
The process will take 10+6+16minutes=32 minutes to produce the first unit. Resource 2 is the
bottleneck and the process capacity is 1/6 units per minute. Hence time to finish 100 units is 32
minutes + 99×6 minutes = 626 minutes.
b) Labor utilization at resource 1 = (1/6)/(1/5) = 5/6 (since effective cycle time is 5 min)
Labor utilization at resource 2 = 1
Labor utilization at resource 3 = (1/6)/(3/16) = 8/9 (since effective cycle time is 16/3 min)
Avg. labor utilization = [(5/6)*2 + 1 + (8/9)*3]/6 = 0.8888
(i.e., the avg. labor utilization is the weighted average of the utilization of all 6 workers.)
c) Since there is unlimited demand, the flow rate is determined by system capacity and is
1/6 units/minute (this corresponds to a system cycle time of 6 minutes per unit).
$
Average cost of labor = = $6 per unit

2.
a) Station 3 (since it has the longest processing time)
b) System capacity equals Bottleneck capacity, which is 1/90 units per second or 40 units per hour.
System cycle time = Bottleneck processing time = 90 second
c) Average cost of labor = $3.38/truck
d) Utilization at Station 2 = /( = 94.4%
3.
a)
0.7 0.6
B E G
0.4 0.3
A 0.3
D H
0.5 C
1.5
F
0.2
b) 1.5 min = 90 s
c) Nmin = (0.5 + 0.7 + … + 0.3)/1.5 = 3
d) LTT leads to the following allocation scheme:
Work-station Time Remaining Eligible Task(s) Assign Idle
1.5 A A
1 0.3
1.0 B, C B
2 1.5 C, E C 0
1.5 D, E, F E
0.9 D, F, G G
3 0
0.5 D, F D
0.2 F F
4 1.5 H H 1.2
e) Efficiency = ti / (Na * C) = 4.5 / 6 = 0.75 or 75%
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4.
a)

70 10 60 25
25
15
45 20

20
40 30 50

b) cycle time = 7.5 * 3600 /300 = 90 seconds/unit

c) Theoretical minimum # of stations = 410 / 90 = 4.6  5
d) Longest task time rule:
Workstation Time Remaining Eligible Task(s) Assign Idle
90 A, B, C A
1 10
20 B, C, D D
90 B, C, G G
2 5
30 B, C, J J
90 B, C C
3 5
45 B, F B
90 E, F E
4 10
60 F, H H
90 F F
70 I I
5 10
55 K K
35 L L

Line efficiency = 410 / (5*90) = 91.1%

e) New demand = 112.5% of 300 = 337.5

New cycle time = 7.5 * 3600 /337.5 = 80 seconds/unit.
Longest task time rule:
Workstation Time Remaining Eligible Task(s) Assign Idle
80 A, B, C A
1 0
10 B, C, D D
2 80 B, C, G G 20
80 B, C, J C
3 10
35 B, F, J J
80 B, F B
4 10
40 E, F E
80 F, H H
5 10
30 F F
80 I I
6 65 K K 20
45 L L

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5.
a)
B E G

0.7 0.6 0.4

A 0.3
H
D
0.5 C 0.3

1.5 F 0.2
b) minimum cycle time = 1.5 min = 90 s
c) Largest number of followers:
Work-station Time Remaining Eligible Task(s) Assign Idle
1.5 A A
1 0.3
1.0 B, C B
2 1.5 C, E C 0
1.5 D, E, F E
0.9 D, F, G G
3 0
0.5 D, F D
0.2 F F
4 1.5 H H 1.2

6. Desired cycle time = 60 /15 = 4 minutes/unit.

A
1
B G
2
E 1
2
C
3 D
3 3
F

Using LNF or LTT will lead to an allocation scheme of 5 workstations. However, the optimal number
of workstations is 4 and can only be obtained through trial and error:
Workstation 1 2 3 4
Assignment A, C D B, E F, G

Alternative allocation scheme:

Workstation 1 2 3 4
Assignment C A, D B, E F, G

The goal of this exercise is to demonstrate that LNF & LTT are heuristics and do not guarantee
optimal solution.