Question

Given the following information. Which of the statements below can you support with this information?

Maximum capacity (labor hours): 480 hours per week
Effective capacity ratio: 85 %
Actual time worked: 380 hours per week over the last two weeks
On-time delivery %: 75 percent of the jobs are being completed on time

a. More capacity needs to be added in the short term to improve performance in the system.
b. We need to look at variability in the rate at which jobs enter the shop.
c. Our workforce is not working hard enough.
d. Our workforce may be waiting on delayed arrivals of inputs needed to do the work.
Describe the reasons why you selected the specific option(s) that you did.

Answer 1

d. Our workforce may be waiting on delayed arrivals of inputs needed to do the work.

Step-by-step explanation:

There are two possible sources for 25% of the jobs not being delivered on time:

1. we have a problem with inputs required (materials or labor)
2. we have a problem with the capacity of our facility

If we followed Juran's Law, we can simply assume that the problem here has to do with our productive system (like 85% of production errors). Two clear problems are obvious:

1. only 380 hours worked out of total of 480 hours per week ⇒ why didn't anyone work during the remaining 100 hours? Is there a delay with the inputs or we don't have enough workers?
2. only 85% of the facility's capacity is being used ⇒ why only 85% of the effective capacity ratio? If we are finishing jobs late, why do we have 15% of unused capacity?

Obviously we cannot answer these questions just be reading two paragraphs, but that is what should be answered in order to solve the issues.