A production line is to be designed for a product whose completion requires 21 minutes of work. The factory works 400 minutes per day. Can an assembly line with five workstations make 100 units per day?
A) yes, with exactly 100 minutes to spare
B) no, but four workstations would be sufficient
C) no, it will fall short even with a perfectly balanced line
D) yes, but the line's efficiency is very low
E) cannot be determined from the information given

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

To produce 100 units per day, each unit must be completed in 4 minutes (400 minutes / 100 units). With 21 minutes of work required per unit, even with a perfectly balanced line, each of the five workstations would need to work for 4.2 minutes per unit (21 minutes / 5 workstations), which exceeds the 4-minute requirement. Therefore, it's not possible to meet the target with five workstations.

A Production Line Is to Be Designed for a Product