Keen Edge, Pty. Ltd. manufactures a range of high-quality knives. The table shown below represents the steps required to produce the QZ106 model pocket knife. The company wishes to set up a production line that can efficiently meet a demand of 250 per week. The production line will be scheduled to work eight hours per day with two 15-minute breaks, five days a week.
a. Draw a precedence diagram for this manufacturing process.
b. Compute the takt time necessary to fill the demand of 250 within the time allotted.
c. What is the theoretical number of workstations for a balanced line?
d. Using the LOT criteria balance this line to a design cycle time equal to the takt time computed in part b.
e. Compute the projected efficiency of the line you designed in part d.
f. Identify the bottleneck(s).
g. Which station has the lowest efficiency? What could you do to improve this?
h. How would variability in the times to complete each activity impact the line cycle time? How would variability affect the ability to meet the takt time requirement? How would variability impact the projected efficiency of the line?
i. How do quality problems affect the ability to meet takt time? (Hint: What if some of the workstations have yields that are less than 100%?)