Question

I-mart is a discount optical shop that can fill most prescription orders in around 1 hour. The management is analyzing the processes at the store. There currently is one person assigned to each task below. The optometrist assigned to task “B” takes an hour off for lunch and the other employees work the entire day.

TASK		TIME
A.	Greet/register the patient	2	minutes/patient
B.	Optometrist conducts eye exam	25	minutes/patient
C.	Frame/lenses selection	20	minutes/patient
D.	Glasses made (process can run 6 pairs of glasses at the same time)	60	minutes/patient
E.	Final fitting	5	minutes/patient

For a typical 10-hour retail day (10 A.M. – 8 P.M.), the manager would like to calculate the following:

a.	What is the current maximum output of the process per day (assuming every patient requires glasses)? (Round your answer to 1 decimal place.)

Maximum output

patients/day

b.

If another person was added, where is the logical place?

	Task A
	Task B
	Task C
	Task D
	Task E

Answer 1

a.

Task		Cycle time (minutes)	Effective cycle time (minutes)	Available time (hrs.)	Capacity (# patients/ day)
A	Greet/register the patient	2	2	10	300
B	Optometrist conducts eye exam	25	25	9	21.6 (minimum)
C	Frame/lenses selection	20	20	10	30
D	Glasses made (6 pairs at a time)	60	10	10	60
E	Final fitting	5	5	10	120

So, the maximum output = 21.6 patients per day.

b.

On the basis of the minimum capacity, Task B is the bottleneck.

So, if another person is added, it must be in Task B.