' Ope1·.

ation
__ __ _..

PROCESS CHART Trans po rts

5

Charted by
?icking
RGS
- Inspections
1
5
Can I Elim inate? Delays
Chart N o. 01 Sheet 1 of 1 Can I Combine? 0
Storages
Date 1 / 8 /13 Can I Change Sequence? lime
Can I Simplify? Distance 215

,.
Dist.
in
lime
in
. .=
CII ci.
"'
:;,
1i
Present @
Descriptions
Notes

f!:: ..s"'
C. 0
Feet Min. 0 Cl iii Proposed

1 5 a f) 'ff Computer prin ts order sheet s

..... • "'
~- •
2 90 60 e~ To the wareho use

Ill D .,,
3 1 20 f_J;:9 V On di st ribution des k

4 3 Separated accord i ng t o work areas

...... ••
5 30 10 - ~ ..JR 8 Ta ken to start points

6 80
.- O• t-
...
V Wait f o r order pi c ke r

........-~•-•
7 4 liJ Picker separates them order by o rder

8 20 ii V (Produce) picker fills order

9 20 15 8 'f' To Dairy aisl e

10 25 V On c onv eyor waiting f o r picker

10 -v (Dairy) picker fills order

·----·
11
12 3 0 30
• V To Meat aisle

......-~-••
• -+ rn:::. v
..-.. •
13 60 On conv eyor waiting for picker

14 5 ii V (Me a t) picker fills order

15 4 5 15 V To inspecti o n

16 4 V Inspected

....
17 10 Iii D V Loaded onto carts rou t e-by-route

50 ci"9 V Wait s to be taken to the warehouse

•
18

-~
II V

••
19 = -
20 526
•
II
Im D V
V Total Time

__ .,. -,,
-

...21 , , . '~
' "~ "'' I

SYMBOL KEY

• Operation (a task or work activity)

Inspection (an inspection of the product for quantity or quality)

• Transportation (a movement of material from one point to another)

y Storage (an inventory or storage of materials awaiting the next operation)

• Delay (a delay in the sequence of operations)

•c..t. Partiwo
Process Design

,
I / li_r,_.__T h ere a re a lso a n umber c,r ::.ecurity X-ray sta-
for examining carry-on luggage, and we
L u ns
m easure the total time it takes from entering the
security line until passengers are cleared to catch
their flights. It turns out that these three observa-
tions are related: the average number of passen-
gers in the line, the average rate at which security
can process passengers, and the average time it
takes passengers to get through the line. This rela-
tionship is called Little's Law, named after the op-
erations researcher who discovered it. Little's Law
basically shows that the average number of items
in a system (I) is the product of the average arrival
rate to the system (R) and the average length of
AL_ve1rage waiting time in line at airport security follows time an item stays in the system (T). This average
1tt e's Law. .
time in the system is throughput time, the time
from when the processing begins until the product
. or service is completely finished. It includes both
active proces_sing time as well as any waiting time that occurs during processing.
In mathematical terms Little's Law is stated as follows:
I= TX R
where I= average number of things in the system (or "inventory")
T = average throughput time (processing time + waiting time)
R = average flow rate in the process

In the case of airport security, if the security screeners can process an average of
five passengers per minute (R = 5) and it takes an average of 20 minutes to get
through the security check line (T = 20), the average number of passengers in line
will be 100 (RX T = 100). An assumption is that the process is in a steady state in
which the average output rate equals the average input rate to the process.
Little's Law is very powerful and is widely used in practice. It applies to manu-
facturing and service transformation processes. Little's Law can be used in a
variety of settings and situations. ·
Example
It will be helpful to see a couple of examples. Suppose a factory can produce an average of
100 units of product per day. Also, assume the throughput time, including all processing and
waiting time for the product, is an average of 10 days.

T = 10 days
R = 100 units per day
Then the average inventory (partly finished product) in the factory will be
/ = 10 x 100 = 1000 units
th amp le the amount of money in accounts receivable can be considered as
For ano er ex , .f h · $ ·11· · · b
(fl 1s 2hm1 ion
·inventory, or th estock of money · Using Little's Law, 1 t ere h) in accounts rece1va
· le (/)
and $ 2 0,000 per day is added to and subtracted from ows t roug accounts receivable (R),
the throughput time is
100 days (T = t/R = 2,000,000/20,000)
. ble has 1oo days of outstanding receivables.
Therefore, accounts rece1va
 123
Chapter 6 Process-Flow Analysis

Little's Law a ppl'•;s to any steady-state transformation process including

manufacturing
legal office and peop e waitmg in lines, invoice processing, transactions in a
any two /the:;,,:n accounts receivable processing. Little's Law is useful when
culated Th 0 vanables in the formula are known and the third can be cal·
also cal~ul e;7ples above show how this is done to calculate I and T. We can
a e 1 we know I and r (R = I/T).
demaN d
ext, C
we . . process measurements to include capacity, supply, an d
extend
n · apacity is the maximum rate of output from a transformation pro-
th or
cess . the max·unum fl ow rate that can be sustained over a period · of tune.
· In
e airport security example, the average flow rate was five passengers per
mmute, but the capacity of the security checkpoint may have been, say, eight
per mmute. With random arrivals (such as passengers arriving
passengers · · ·
to enter the line) it is necessary to have capacity that exceeds the average ar·
nval rate or _the line will build up to an infinite length. This occurs because
there are periods when the arrivals are less than the average and the full capac-
'.ty cannot be used during those times. Queuing (or waiting line) theory, which
covered in a technical chapter on the text website, explains these phenomena
15
in detail.
Most processes are composed of several resources that must process
the transactions. In the airport screening example resources include the workers
who check each passenger's idenlification and boarding pass, operators who
run the X-ray equipment, and the X-ray equipment itself. In general, if there are
n resources that process each transaction, then
Capacity Miflimum (capacity of resource,, ...., capacity of resource.)
Note that the capacity of the entire process cannot be larger than the capacity
of the most constraining (the smallest capacity) resource, which is called the

The amount
bottleneck. . a transformation process actually produces will depend on its
capacity as well as the supply and demand of the process. The flow rate is as

follows: Flow rate == Minimum (supply, demand, capacity)

In the factory ,xample above, assume that capacity was 200 units per day, demand
was 75 units per day, and supply was 100 units per day. The flow rate would be
75 units per day (the ,uirumuID of the three variables) assuming they can produce
only what is demanded. ff they were able to increase demand to 150 units per day,
the flow rate would be only 100 umts per day unless supply also could be

increased.

6.6 MEASURING PROCESS FLOWS AT PIZZA U.S.A.

To cement our understandmg of the concepts of process measurement, let us re-
turn to the ptz,a U.S.A. ,_pie first described in Chapter 1. Suppose that one of
the piz,a stores produces fresh piz,a with seven different topping choices, includ-
ing the most popular "everything dump" piz,a. The store is staffed by two em·
ployeesc a piz,a chef and an assistant. It has an oven that can bake up to four
124 Pa rt Two l'rn,·css Dc,i/;n

.
pizzas . process (sequ ence of steps) followed at the
at a time. The tra nsfor mation
store is as follows:

Minutes Who
Ta ke the order 1 Assistant
Make the crust 3 Chef
Prepare and add ingredients 2 Chef
Bake the pizza 24 Oven
Cut pizza and box the order Assistant
Take payment Assistant

l. What is the capacity of this process?

Looking at the three resources, we have:
• The assistant takes 3 minutes per order (1 + 1 + 1) and thus can process
20 orders per hour.
• The chef takes 5 minutes per order (3 + 2) and can process 12 orders per hour.
• The oven takes an average of 6 minutes per order (24 + 4), or 10 orders
per hour.
For simplicity, we have assumed that each order is for one pizza and that pizzas
can be added to the oven any time during the cooking cycle. The minimum of the
three resource capacities is 10 orders per hour, and so the system can produce
10 orders per hour.
2. What is the bottleneck in this process?

The bottleneck in this case is the oven. The assistant is busy only half the time,
and the chef has 1 minute of idle capacity out of every 6 minutes. Reallocating jobs
between the chef and the assistant to balance the workload will make the chef
happy but will not increase the flow rate of the process. If Pizza U.S.A. wants to
make more pizzas, something must be done to accelerate the flow of pizzas through
the oven, or another oven must be added. The lesson here is that the process cannot
produce more than the bottleneck can process. This is cov~red more completely in
Chapter 13 when we discuss scheduling and the
theory of constraints.
3. What is the throughput time?

If we assume there is no waiting time in this

system, we simply add the times of all the steps to
fill an order:

1 + 3 + 2 + 24 + 1 + 1 = 32 minutes
It takes 32 minutes to complete all the steps and
make one pizza. Note that adding an oven will im-
prove the capacity and move the bottleneck to the
chef, but it will not improve the throughput time.
Changes would have to be made in the actual pro-
cess of cooking, preparation, or other flow times to
The oven is the bottleneck for Pizza U.S.A. reduce throughput time.
 Chapter 6 Process-Flow Analysis 125
4. What is the flow rate?
Assummg that demand and
by the capacity of 10 d supply exceed capacity, the flow rate is determined
0

then the smaller of th

assume demand .
i
actual flow rate could ~ ers per hour. ~owever, this is the maximum flow rate; the
mu?1 less. If ~1ther demand or supply is less than capacity,
0
will determine the flow rate. In the following question, we
is O Y60 percent of capacity, for a flow rate of six pizzas per hour.
5. What does it cost t0 k . .
ma ea pizza if the average demand is 60 percent of capacity?
Assume the chef t ·d
and O h d _ge s pai $15 per hour, the assistant gets paid $11 per hour,
ver ea cost is 50 percent of direct labor cost. At 60 percent of capacity,
th e average flow rate . . . . .
$l is six pizzas per hour. The cost per hour of operations 1s
5
$ $ll == $26 for labor plus 50 percent added for overhead = $39 per hour, or
Tr . .,. 6 == $6 .50 per pizza. Assume the cost of ingredients is $2.00 per pizza.
erefore, the total cost is $6.50 + $2.00 = $8.50 per pizza.
6. How can the unit cost of pizzas be reduced?
Three possibilities are:
• Increase demand through pricing, advertising, or other means.
• If demand increases to exceed capacity, increase the flow rate of the entire
transformation process by means of automation or process improvements.
• Reduce the unit cost of labor, materials, or overh_ead.
As you can see, these three approaches are interconnected because increasing
demand will also require an increase in capacity at some point, and increasing the
flow rate does no good unless demand is increased to sell the additional product.
 SOLVED PROBLEMS

Problem 1. A ticket line for a Minnesota Vikings football game has an average 'of 100 fans
waiting to buy tickets and an average flow rate of 5 fans per minute. What is the
average time that a ticket buyer can expect to wait in line?

Solution Using Little's Law I= TX R, solve for T:

T = I + R = 100 + 5 = 20
A ticket buyer can expect to spend an average of 20 minutes in line.
2. Joe's commercial laundry has contracts to wash bedsheets for hotels. Joe intakes
Problem
each batch of sheets, which takes 1 minute, and then the sheets are washed, taking
20 minutes, and dried, taking 30 minutes. The batch of sheets is ironed, taking
10 minutes for one employee to complete each batch, and there are two employees
ironing sheets. Finally, Joe packages the sheets and bills the customer, taking
2 minutes. Joe has five washing machines and seven dryers that can process one
batch of sheets each.
a. What is the capacity of the laundry system, and what is the bottleneck?
b . What is the average throughput time of a batch of sheets?
c. If the flow rate is 10 batches per hour, what is the average number of batches
of sheets in the system (inventory)?
a . The capacity of each resource is as follows:
Solution • Joe takes 3 minutes for each batch and can thus handle 20 batches per hour.
Ironing takes 10 minutes, and so each employee can handle 6 batches
per hour and the total capacity for two employees is 12 batches per hour.
130 Part Two Process Design

• Washing machines take 20 minutes per batch or three loa_ds per hour for
each machine, and there are fi ve machines, for a total capacity of 15 batches
per hour.
• Dryers take 30 minutes per batch or two loads p er hour from each
machine x seven machines for a capacity of 14 batches per hour.
The most constraining (minimum capacity) resource is the ironing, and so
the system capacity is 12 batches per hour and ironing is the bottleneck.
b. The average throughput time (assuming no waiting time) of the system for
each batch of sheets is:
T = I + 20 + 30 + 10 + 2 = 63 minutes
c. I = T x R = (63 ..,_ 60) x 10 = 10.5 batches (note, that the 63 minutes must be
converted to hours using 60 minutes in an hour).
Problem 3. A small restaurant has 30 tables. When the guests arrive, the manager seats them,
servers serve them, and the cashier assists them when they pay the bill. The process
is shown with processing times above the process steps and waiting times that
occur between operations below the steps. One manager, one cashier, and four
servers are available.
Oper. time
Manager Server Server Server Server Cashier
1 minute 2 minutes 3 minutes 4 minutes 1 minute 2 minutes
Bring menu Serve drinks
Find table & & Serve food Bring check Pay cashier
order drinks order food

Trme between 5 10 20 30 5
Oper. (minutes)

a. What is the capacity of the system and the bottleneck resource?

b. What is the throughput time for each customer?
c. If there are 20 arrivals per hour, what is the average number of tables filled?
Solution a. The capacity of each resource is as follows:
• The manager takes 1 minute each and can handle 60 customers (or tables)
per hour.
• The cashier takes 2 minutes each and can handle 30 custo mers per h our
• Each server takes 10 minutes per table and can hand! 6 t bl ·
Th ere are four servers, and so the total capacity for se e a· 24es per hour
b ·
hour. rvers 1s ta Jes per
• There are 30 tables available.
The resource with the minimum capacity is the
capacity is 24 tables per hour and the bottleneck _setrhvers, and so the system
. . 1s e servers.
b. The throughput time (mcluding both processin time a .. .
the system for each customer is g nd waiting hme) of

1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 1 + 2 + 5 + 10 + 20 + 30 + 5 - 8 .
- 3mmutes
c. If there are 20 arrivals per hour there will b
' e an average of
I = T X R = (83 ..,_ 60) X 20 = 27 7 tables b .
· emgused