Section $1$:

You are hired as an operations manager at a manufacturing company called "TechGear Inc." that produces electronic gadgets such as smartphones, tablets, and laptops. Your primary responsibility is to optimize the production processes to ensure efficiency, quality, and cost$-$effectiveness.

$1.$ Evaluate the effectiveness of TechGear's supply chain in terms of sourcing raw materials, production scheduling, and distribution. $($To evaluate TechGear's supply chain effectiveness, we'll assess three key areas: sourcing raw materials, production scheduling, and distribution$).$

$2.$ Calculate the productivity for the following operations:

a$.$ Three employees process $1000$ electronic gadgets in a week. They work $8$ hours per day, $5$ days per week. Find Labor productivity.

b$.$ A team of workers makes $300$ units of a product, which is sold in the market for $$300$ each. The accounting department reports that for this job the actual costs are $$600$ for Labor, $$2,000$ for materials, and $$800$ for overhead. Find multifactor productivity.

$3.$ A$.$ Calculate the year$-$to$-$date Labor productivity:

Blank This Year Last Year Year Before Last

Factory unit sales $360034503270$

Employment $($hrs$)115,000120,000125,000$

Sales of manufactured products $($$$)$ $$67000$ $$62000$

Total manufacturing cost of sales $($$$)$ $$42000$ $$37000$

Solution:

Blank This Year Last Year Year Before Last

b$.$ Calculate the multifactor productivity.

Blank This Year Last Year

$4.$ A process at a smartwatch assembly plant has been changed. The process is divided into three work elements. A time study has been performed with the following results. The time standard for the process previously was $16$ minutes. Based on the new time study, should the time standard be revised?

The new time study had an initial sample of four observations, with the results shown in the following table. The performance rating factor $($R F$)$ is shown for each element, and the allowance for the whole process is $25$ percent of the total normal time.

Blank Observation $1$ Observation $2$ Observation $3$ Observation $4$ Average $($min$)$ R F Normal Time

Element $12\mathrm{.}602\mathrm{.}343\mathrm{.}122\mathrm{.}862\mathrm{.}7301\mathrm{.}02\mathrm{.}730$

Element $24\mathrm{.}944\mathrm{.}785\mathrm{.}104\mathrm{.}684\mathrm{.}8751\mathrm{.}15\mathrm{.}363$

Element $32\mathrm{.}181\mathrm{.}982\mathrm{.}132\mathrm{.}252\mathrm{.}1350\mathrm{.}91\mathrm{.}922$

a$.$ What is the total normal time for the whole process and the standard time $($S T$)$ for the process.

b$.$ Should the management increase or decrease the sample size of the smartwatches base on the new standard.

$5.$ In the customer support department of the company.

$$ Average time to serve a customer is $1$ hour.

$$ The variable cost is $$15$ per hour.

$2000$ customers are served per year.

What is the total Labor cost?

$6.$ The TechGear Inc Company produces headliners, the fiberglass components that form the outer layer of laptops. Management wanted to identify which process failures were most prevalent and to find the cause. Explain the four steps of data analysis.

$7.$ What are the total costs of quality, explain total quality management?

$8.$ If TechGear Inc use the lean system to produce laptops assemblies:

$$ A container of parts spends $0\mathrm{.}06$ day in processing and $0\mathrm{.}09$ day in materials handling and waiting.

$$ Daily demand for the part is $3,000$ units.

$$ Safety stock equivalent of $20$ percent of inventory

A$.$ If each container contains $33$ parts, how many containers should be authorized?

b$.$ Suppose that a proposal to revise the plant layout would cut materials handling and waiting time per container to $0\mathrm{.}07$ day. How many containers would be needed?

$9.$ If company using a Kanban system has an inefficient machine group. For example, the daily demand for part L$105$A is $2,000$ units. The average waiting time for a container of parts is $0\mathrm{.}9$ day. The processing time for a container of L$105$A is $0\mathrm{.}6$ day, and a container holds $330$ units. Currently, $30$ containers are used for this item.

$10.$ a$.$ What is the value of the policy variable, $\backslash$alpha $?$

b$.$ What is the total planned inventory $($work$-$in$-$process and finished goods$)$ for item L$105$A$?$

$11.$ c$.$ Suppose that the policy variable, $\backslash$alpha $,$ was $0.$ How many containers would be needed now? What is the effect of the policy variable in this example?

$12.$ What are economies of scale and diseconomies of scale? Create Graph for TechGear Inc. Company, present the average unit cost with output rate.

$13.$ TechGear Inc. offers two types of smartwatches: Standard and Deluxe. The process flow for both types of customers is shown in the following chart. Both watch types are first processed through steps A$1$ and A$2.$ The Standard watch then goes through steps A$3$ and A$4$ while the Deluxe is processed through steps A$5,$ A$6,$ and A$7.$ Both offerings finish at station $($A$8).$ The numbers in parentheses indicate the minutes it takes for that activity to process a customer.

Process Flow table for TechGear Inc. Smartwatches.

Workstation Minutes Standard or deluxe

A$110$

A$27$

A$36$

A$413$

A$519$

A$612$

A$711$

A$814$

a$.$ Which step is the bottleneck for the Standard