To meet holiday demand, Penny's Pie Shop requires a production line that is capable of producing 50 pecan pies per week, while operating only 40 hours per week.
There are four steps required to produce a single pecan pie with respective processing times of 5 minutes, 5 minutes, 45 minutes, and 15 minutes.
a) what should be the line's cycle time?
b) what is the smallest number of workstations Penny could hope for in designing the line considering this cycle time?
c) suppose that Penny finds a solution that requires only four work stations, what would be the efficiency of this line?