Question

Consider a process consisting of five resources that are operated eight hours per day. The process works on three different products, A, B, and C. The number of processing time for each resource is given as follows:

Resource 1: 12 min/unit for A, 5 min/unit for B, 0 min/unit for C
Resource 2: 5 min/unit for A, 0 min/unit for B, 0 min/unit for C
Resource 3: 4 min/unit for A, 10 min/unit for B, 0 min/unit for C
Resource 4: 3 min/unit for A, 3 min/unit for B, 0 min/unit for C
Resource 5: 4 min/unit for A, 1 min/unit for B, 0 min/unit for C
The demand for the three different products is as follows: Product A, 40 units per day; Product B, 50 units per day; and Product C, 60 units per day. What is the bottleneck? What is the flow rate for each flow unit assuming that demand must be served in the mix described above (i.e., for every four units of A, there are five units of B and six units of C)?

Answer 1

The bottleneck in the process is Resource 1, which has the highest processing time. The flow rate for each flow unit is 3.33 units per min for Product A and 10 units per min for Product B.

Step-by-step explanation:

The bottleneck in this process is the resource that takes the longest processing time for a particular product. To determine the bottleneck, we need to find the resource that has the highest processing time for any of the products.

From the given information, we can see that Resource 1 takes 12 minutes per unit for Product A, which is the highest processing time among all the resources and products. Therefore, Resource 1 is the bottleneck.

The flow rate for each flow unit can be calculated by dividing the demand for each product by the processing time of the bottleneck resource for that product.

• The flow rate for Product A = Demand for Product A / Processing time for Product A at Resource 1 = 40 units per day / 12 min/unit = 3.33 units per min
• The flow rate for Product B = Demand for Product B / Processing time for Product B at Resource 1 = 50 units per day / 5 min/unit = 10 units per min
• The flow rate for Product C = Demand for Product C / Processing time for Product C at Resource 1 = 60 units per day / 0 min/unit = undefined (as processing time for Product C at Resource 1 is 0 min)