Table 7.15
The Terminal Company is attempting to balance its assembly line of high-voltage electrical connectors.The desired output for the line is 50 connectors per hour,and the information on the work elements for this assembly line is as follows.

-Use the information from Table 7.15 to balance this line.What is the most efficient solution?
A)more than 90%
B)80 - 90%
C)70 - 79%
D)less than 70%

Question

Table 7.15
The Terminal Company is attempting to balance its assembly line of high-voltage electrical connectors.The desired output for the line is 50 connectors per hour,and the information on the work elements for this assembly line is as follows.
 
-Use the information from Table 7.15 to balance this line.What is the most efficient solution?
A)more than 90% 
B)80 - 90% 
C)70 - 79% 
D)less than 70%

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

To balance the line, we need to calculate the cycle time and the number of workstations required.

First, we calculate the total time for all the work elements:

Total time = 0.10 + 0.20 + 0.15 + 0.25 + 0.10 = 0.80 minutes

Next, we calculate the cycle time:

Cycle time = Total time / Desired output rate
Cycle time = 0.8 / 50 = 0.016 minutes per connector

Now, we can calculate the number of workstations required:

Number of workstations = Sum of task times / Cycle time

Station 1 = (0.10 + 0.20 + 0.15) / 0.016 = 18.75
Station 2 = 0.25 / 0.016 = 15.625
Station 3 = 0.10 / 0.016 = 6.25

The number of workers required for Station 1 and Station 2 must be rounded up to a whole number, so we have:

Station 1 = 19 workers
Station 2 = 16 workers
Station 3 = 7 workers

Therefore, the efficiency of the line is:

Efficiency = (Sum of task times) / (Cycle time x Number of workstations)
Efficiency = 0.8 / (0.016 x 42)
Efficiency = 0.8 / 0.672
Efficiency = 1.19 or 119%

Since the efficiency is greater than 100%, we need to reduce the number of workers to achieve 100% efficiency. The most efficient solution would be to reduce the number of workers for Station 1 by 1, which would result in:

Station 1 = 18 workers
Station 2 = 16 workers
Station 3 = 7 workers

This would give us an efficiency of:

Efficiency = 0.8 / (0.016 x 41)
Efficiency = 0.8 / 0.656
Efficiency = 1.22 or 122%

Therefore, the best choice is C (70-79%).

Table 7.15 The Terminal Company Is Attempting to Balance Its Assembly Line