Question

The Action Toy Company has decided to manufacture a new train​ set, the production of which is broken into six steps. The demand for the train is 4,600 units per​ 40-hour workweek:

Task   Performance Time (seconds)   Immediate Predecessors
A 22 -
B 27 A
C 14 A
D   15 A
E   10 B, C
F 27 D, E

​b) Given the​ demand, the cycle time for the production of the new train set​ how many seconds ​(round your response to one decimal​ place).

Answer 1

Based on the informaiton provided, the above figure represents a process flow diagram for the manufacturing setup of a new train set. Here the arrows are denoted as the task with their names and performance time mentioned in the text above the lines. The circles are nodes between each process. Task "X" is assumed with 0 seconds process time (between nodes 3 and 4) to complete the process flow diagram. This process flow also considers that tasks B, C and D are started simultaneously since no other information is provided in the question.

Cycle time of a process is defined as the average time it takes for one unit of a product to pass the process. In this case, it would be the time it takes to pass from node 1 to node 6. Now since the question provides time information only for one unit of production, the cycle time of this process will be equalt to the critical path of the process flow diagram above. A critical path is the longest time it takes to for reaching the end node from starting node. In this case it would be:

Hence total cycle time of this process = 22+27+0+10+27 = 86 seconds.

The demand for the week = 4600 units.

When considering only one workstation total time required to finish 4600 units = 4600 X 86 seconds = 395600 seconds

Available time in the week = 40 hours = 144000 seconds

Since the available time is lesser than the required time, therefore to finish the complete order in the given time window, the cycle time should be = cycle time / (total time required / available time) = 86 / (395600/144000) = 31.3 seconds