A company is producing chairs. To produce one chair in Workstation A, 4 metal bars are required. In each 12-hour work day, Workstation A produces 480 chairs. Metal bars are produced in Workstation B. Workstation A and B are located in different areas of the plant and a two card pull system is used. The information about production and moving metal bars is shown below;
Container Size: 120 units,
Conveyance: Total wait time: 2.5 hours, Total move time: 1 hours
Production: Total wait time: 0.75 hours Setup time: 0.9 hours/container, Processing time: 0.005 hours/unit
Safety margin: 20%
a) How many conveyance and production cards are needed for metal bars?
b) What should be the minimum container size in order to reduce the number of conveyance cards by 50%?