The process design team at a manufacturer has broken an assembly process into eight basic steps,each with a required time,and predecessor as shown in the table.There are 8 productive hours available in a day and the manufacturer wishes to produce 400 units.

-What is the theoretical minimum number of stations?
A)four
B)five
C)six
D)seven

Question

The process design team at a manufacturer has broken an assembly process into eight basic steps,each with a required time,and predecessor as shown in the table.There are 8 productive hours available in a day and the manufacturer wishes to produce 400 units.
 
-What is the theoretical minimum number of stations?
A)four 
B)five 
C)six 
D)seven

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

Using the largest time of each step, the total required time for one unit to complete is 48 minutes. To produce 400 units in a day, 320 minutes are required (400 units x 48 minutes per unit). With 8 productive hours (480 minutes) available in a day, the theoretical minimum number of stations required to produce 400 units is 320/480, which is 0.67. Since we can't have a fractional number of stations, we need to round up to the next whole number, which is 1. Therefore, we need at least 5 stations to complete the process within the available time. Option A cannot be correct because it is too low, and option C and D are too high.

The Process Design Team at a Manufacturer Has Broken an Assembly