QUESTION 5

1. Discuss how inventory disguises possible problems in the production system.
2. Consider a workstation that can process 1500 units per hour. It takes 15 minutes to receive an order from the previous station. The container size is 25 units. Eighteen kanbans are used for the workstation? What is the safety stock as a percent of demand during lead time?
3. Use this material requirements planning record to explain how kanban and MRP can be used together. This plant operates on a 40 hour week, and uses a 20% safety factor on a container size of 50 units with a two hour turnaround time on a container.

Week	1	2	3	4	5
Gross Requirement	4000	4200	4400	4600	4600
Scheduled Receipts	0	0	0	0	0
Projected Ending Inventory	0	0	0	0	0
Net Requirements	4000	4200	4400	4600	4600
Planned Receipts	4000	4200	4400	4600	4600
Planned Orders	4000	4200	4400	4600	4600

d. Two modules are used to feed the final assembly station on an assembly line. The final assembly station must produce 500 units in an eight hour day. Each finished unit needs two module As and 3 module Bs. The factory uses a standard sized container that can hold 50 module As or 70 module Bs. It takes 2 hours to fill and move a container of module As but only 90 minutes to fill and move a container of module Bs. If both module assembly processes have safety factors of 15% how many containers should be used for each? How many hours of demand will this satisfy?