Assignment:
The Goodparts Company produces an assembly that is used in a solar-powered water purification system. The assembly consists of three parts (A, B, and C) that are purchased from outside suppliers. Parts A and B are assembled first on Assembly Line 1, which produces 120 sub-assemblies per hour. Part C undergoes a Drilling operation before being assembled with the output from Assembly Line 1.
There are a total of six drilling machines, but unfortunately only three of them are currently operational. Each drilling machine drills part C at a rate of 45 parts per hour.
In the Final Assembly step, the output from Assembly Line 1 is assembled with the drilled part C. The Final Assembly line produces at a rate of 125 assemblies per hour.
The factory runs 8 hours per day and 5 days a week.
A) Determine the process capacity, measured by the number of assemblies produced per week, of the entire process. Which process is the bottleneck?
B) The factory director has decided that capacity must be increased. Suppose a second shift of 8 hours per day is added for Assembly Line 1, and a second shift of 8 hours per day is added for the Final Assembly line. Also, 5 of the 6 drilling machines are now available for use (the drilling machines, however, still operate for only 8 hours a day). What is the new process capacity?
C)The Goodparts CEO's son-in-law has a different idea. He convinces the factory director to make the following changes:
(1) a second shift of 8 hours per day for Assembly Line 1,
(2) a second shift of 4 hours per day for the Final Assembly Line, and
(3) all six drilling machines operating for 8 hours a day. What is the new process capacity?