Scenario A:

Consider the following process flowchart for a hypothetical quick service restaurant. Throughput times are listed in parentheses after the name of each activity. For all questions, answer using customers and/or minutes as your units of measure. There are no inventory buffers between any stations; instead, blocking occurs for upstream activities.

Take Order (6.1 minutes) ----> Prepare drinks (4.7 minutes) ----> Prepare food (7.9 minutes) -----> Assemble order (5.2 minutes) ----> Take payment (5.5 minutes).

Each activity uses its own workers & equipment. The Prepare Food activity can handle 2 customers at once; each of the others can handle 1 customer at a time.

What is the throughput time (in minutes) for the entire process (from the start of the take order activity through the end of the take payment activity)? Pick the closest answer.

5

10

15

20

25

30

Refer to Scenario A. What is the cycle time for the prepare food activity, in minutes? Pick the closest answer.

1

2

3

4

5

6

Refer to Scenario A. Which task is the bottleneck?

Take order

Prepare drinks

Prepare food

Assemble Order

Take Payment

Refer to Scenario A. What is the actual throughput rate out of the Take Payment station, in customers per minute? Pick the closest answer.

.15

.25

.50

.75

2

4

8

Refer to scenario A. Which task(s) would be blocked? Pick all that apply. (2 pts)

Take order

Prepare drinks

Prepare food

Assemble order

Take payment

None of the above

Refer to Scenario A. Which task(s) would be starved? Pick all that apply (2 pts)

Take order

Prepare drinks

Prepare food

Assemble order

Take payment

None of the above

Refer to Scenario A. What is the utilization of the Assemble order stage? Pick the closest answer.

15%

25%

35%

65%

75%

85%

95%