A medical equipment testing and calibration service is depicted in Exhibit 11.28. The customer usually brings the equipment to the service center. The service process requires service technicians to perform three process steps #1 to #3. Each technician is cross-trained so they can perform any of the three steps. The inspector does step #4 alone. After step #4, two parallel work activities are performed.

That is, a shipping clerk packs the work (step #7), while simultaneously, a billing clerk prepares the invoice (step #5), and the customer is contacted by phone for pick-up (step #6). The average throughput is three equipment units per hour.

The table below shows the work content of the process steps, activity times in minutes per unit, shared and non-shared work activities, and the type of resource required. There are three service technicians on duty, one inspector, one billing clerk, and one shipping clerk.

a. What is the service rate for the service technician?

b. What is the labor utilization rate (%) for the billing clerk?

c. What is the labor utilization rate (%) for the service technician?

d. What job represents the bottleneck in this process?

Transcribed Image Text:

Activity Start 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 End Activity Time (minutes) LEN | 17 25 25 Activity Performed By Service technician Service technician Service technician Inspector Billing clerk Billing clerk Shipping clerk