An assembly-line process has five tasks as listed in the table below:

Task time
Task 1	10 min
Task 2	10 min
Task 3	10 min
Task 4	25 min
Task 5	5 min

Three workers (S1, S2, and S3) are staffed on this assembly line, and the assignment of tasks to each worker is:

• S1 does Task 1.
• S2 does Tasks 2 and 3.
• S3 does Tasks 4 and 5.

For the following questions, we assume that process is operating at full capacity.

1. Which worker is the bottleneck of the process? What is the process capacity in [units/hour]? 
2. What is the idle time of each worker in [minutes]?
3. Assume a wage rate of $18 per hour. What is the direct labor cost in [$/unit]?
4. Still assume a wage rate of $18 per hour. If we reassign Activity 5 from S3 to S1, what will be the new direct labor cost in [$/unit]? Is this reassign an improvement?

Answer rating: 100% (QA)

Answer activity time 1 10 2 10 3 10 4 25 5 5 3 workers worker time S1 10 S2 1010 20 ... View the full answer