Consider a serial production process with 3 stations. Station A1 produces a component. Station A2 produces another component. Stations A1 and A2 work in parallel. The components produced at A1 and A2 are then passed to Station B that assembles them. The assembly at Station B requires one unit from A1 and one unit from A2. Station A1 can complete the work of one unit in 7 minutes. Work at Station A2 takes 6 minutes per unit, and work at Station B takes 9 minutes per unit. No work in process is allowed to build between stations.

a, Which station is the bottleneck of this serial process?

Station A1

Station A2

Station B

All stations are the bottleneck in this process.

The bottleneck cannot be identified with the available information.

b, What is the cycle time of the process

7 minutes

9 minutes

16 minutes

22 minutes

Cannot be computed with the available information

c,

What is the flow time of a unit in this process if there are no delays

9 minutes

15 minutes

16 minutes

22 minutes

All of the above

d,

What is the hourly throughput rate (capacity or output) of the process if the throughput of station B doubles by hiring additional workers

6.67 units per hour

7 units per hour

8.57 units per hour

10 units per hour

13.33 units per hour