PowerToys Inc produces a small remote-controlled toy truck on a conveyor belt with nine stations. Each station has, under the current process layout, on worker assigned to it. 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 mirror 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?
c. What is the direct labor cost for the toy truck with the current process if each worker receives $15/hour, expressed in dollars per toy truck?
d. What would be the direct labor cost for the toy truck if work would be organized in a work cell, that is, one worker performs all tasks? Assume that the processing times would remain unchanged (ie, there are no specialization gains).
e. What is the utilization of the worker in station 2?
Because of a drastically reduced forcast, the plant management has decided to cut staffing from nine to six workers per shift. Assume that
(i) the nine tasks in the preceding table cannot be divided; (ii) the nine tasks are assigned to the six workers in the most efficient way possible; and (iii) if one worker is in charge of two tasks, the tasks have to be adjacent (i.e., one worker cannot work on tasks 1 and 3).
f. How would you assign the nine tasks to the six workers?
g. What is the new capacity of the line (in toy trucks per hour)?