Matching Supply with Demand: An Introduction to Operations Management 2nd Edition by Cachon Terwiesch

Exercise 2

(Assign Tasks to Workers) Consider the following six tasks that must be assigned to four workers on a conveyor-paced assembly line (i.e., a machine-paced line flow). Each worker must perform at least one task.
The current conveyor-paced assembly line configuration assigns the workers in the following way:
• Worker 1: Task 1
• Worker 2: Task 2
• Worker 3: Tasks 3, 4
• Worker 4: Tasks 5, 6
a. What is the capacity of the current line?
b. Now assume that tasks are allocated to maximize capacity of the line, subject to the conditions that (1) a worker can only perform two adjacent operations and (2) all tasks need to be done in their numerical order. What is the capacity of this line now?
c. Now assume that tasks are allocated to maximize capacity of the line and that tasks can be performed in any order. What is the maximum capacity that can be achieved?