The total work content for a product assembled on a manual production line is 48 min. The work is transported using a continuous overhead conveyor that operates at a speed of 3 ft/min. There are 24 workstations on the line, one-third of which have two workers; the remaining stations each have one worker. Repositioning time per worker is 9 sec, and uptime efficiency of the line is 95%.
(a) What is the maximum possible hourly production rate if line is assumed to be perfectly balanced?
(b) If the actual production rate is only 92% of the maximum possible rate determined in part (a), what is the balance efficiency on the line?