Goal: Demonstrate ability to analyze process map, measure time-to-complete, and assess value of process changes.

Scenario:

You are preparing a meal for you and a guest - your specialty Chicken & Mushrooms over Rice and a Salad with your favorite dressing. You have the following items in your kitchen:

Saut pan

Sauce pan

One Cutting board

One Chopping knife

Bowls, plates, and utensils

Automatic Rice Cooker

Cheese grater

4-burner stove

Your high-level process consists of 6 activities:

Cut up the vegetables for the salad and chicken dish

Cut up the chicken

Prepare the salad

Cook the chicken dish (chicken, vegetables, sauce)

Make the rice

Serve

Because you have limited equipment, you've developed a procedure for making your dinner that optimizes the time required given your current equipment by doing things in parallel whenever possible. The steps you take to prepare the meal are listed below:

Start

Step #1 Time:5 Gather all ingredients, utensils, equipment

Step #2 Time:12 Chop Lettuce, Tomato, and Cucumber for Salad (assume equal times to chopeach vegetable)

Step #3 Time:1 Put in bowl, put in refrigerator for later

Step #4 Time:2 Grate cheese for sauce (set aside)

Step #5 Time:3 Put rice and water into rice cooker

Step #6 Time:23 Rice cooker cooks rice

Step #7 Time:4 Dice raw chicken

Step #8 Time:2 Melt butter & oil in saut pan

Step #9 Time:11 Saut chicken (stirring occasionally)

Step #10 Time:3 While chicken is sauting, wash & disinfect cutting board and knife

Step #11 Time:3 Chop mushrooms - set aside

Step #12 Time:4 Chop onions

Step #13 Time:1 When chicken is browned, move to a plate and cover with foil

Step #14 Time:1 Add oil to pan and heat

Step #15 Time:4 Saut onions, salt, pepper in pan for 4 minutes

Step #16 Time:8 Add mushrooms, salt, and pepper to pan and cook until done

Step #17 Time:1 Deglaze pan with white wine

Step #18 Time:4 Add chicken back to pan and saut for 3 minutes

Step #19 Time:2 In sauce pan, melt butter

Step #20 Time:2 Add flour and stir until golden

Step #21 Time:1 Add secret herbs and cook for 1 minute

Step #22 Time:3 Add cream and cook until bubbling

Step #23 Time:4 Reduce heat, add grated cheese and stir until cheese is melted

Step #24 Time:2 Add sauce to chicken mixture, stir and set to low heat

Step #25 Time:1 Whisk together oil, vinegar, and herbs for salad dressing

Step #26 Time:1 Get salad out of refrigerator

Step #27 Time:1 Toss with Salad dressing

Step #28 Time:2 When rice is done, put salad into individual bowls

Step #29 Time:2 Put rice on plate and spoon chicken mixture over it

Step #30 Time:2 Move plates/bowls to table and eat

Assignment:

1. (15 points) Draw the process map showing steps 1-30. Explicitly identify parallel activities and decision points.

2. (5 points) How long does it take to complete the process described above? Justify your answer.

3. (15 points) Would the following reduce the overall time required? Treat each item a-e as independent cases. Justify your answers:

a. Having a second person helping (but no change of equipment)

b. Getting a second cutting board and knife

b Both a. and b: 2^nd person AND 2^nd cutting board/knife

d. Getting a rice cooker that reduces cooking time to 15 minutes

e. Using pre-chopped vegetables

4. (15 points) Maximum parallelism:

(a) (5 points) Draw a process map that shows the maximum amount of parallelism possible, removes unnecessary steps, and incorporates needed decision points, if any.

(b) (5 points) What is the shortest amount of time possible to complete the dinner? Justify your answer.

(c) (5 points) What extra resources are needed to implement the shortest-time process?