A manufacturing company is planning to setup a work shop that will be used for only one operation of the jobs produced in the facility. The following table shows the processing times of jobs to be produced in this work shop.
Management wants the utilization of this work shop to be 100% so as not to waste money on investment.
Job 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Processing time (hours) 1 5 4 3 2 4 1 8 5 7
(a) If all jobs that will be produced in this work shop are non-preemptive, how many machines should be purchased to satisfy the management’s purpose? Which scheduling performance criterion should be taken into account in this calculation? Based on your findings, show your schedule on a Gantt chart to prove that the management’s objective is satisfied, and write which scheduling rule (approach) you used and why?
(b) If all jobs that will be produced in this work shop are preemptive, how many machines should be purchased to satisfy the management’s purpose? Which scheduling performance criterion should be taken into account in this calculation? Based on your findings, show your schedule on a Gantt chart to prove that the management’s objective is satisfied, and write which scheduling rule (approach) you used and why?