PROBLEM SET ASSIGNMENT 3: PRODUCTION & OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT: SPRI NG 2024

This is a Take-Home-Assignment. So feel free to refer to all of your class notes or text book notes or any
other resources. Kindly attempt all four questions. Each part of each question is worth 0.5 points. The total
credits you can earn out of this assignment are therefore 8 points maximum. You are allowed to discuss the
solution strategy with your class mates but this is an individual assignment and therefore must be your
individual effort. Any two solutions found to be a copy of each other wholly or partially will both get a
straight zero. The submission deadline is Friday May 24th, 2024, 9:00am.

Q1)- (Bucky Car Wash): On a busy Saturday morning, the Bucky Car Wash is taking an average of 5
minutes of Cycle Time to wash each car. The average number of cars that are being washed per hour is 120.
(a)- What is the average number of cars being washed or waiting in line at the car wash (that is, available in
the system)?
(b)- The manager at the aforementioned car wash notices that many cars pull into the car wash location, only
to turn back and leave when they see the length of the line. Consequently, she sets out to speed up the
process. First, she aims to identify the bottleneck. She records the following capacity data:
Station 1: Package selection and payment = 120 cars/hour
Station 2: Scrub = 150 cars/hour
Station 3: Wash = 150 cars/hour
Station 4: Rinse = 160 cars/hour
Station 5: Dry = 140 cars/hour
Recall that the average number of cars that can be washed per hour is 120. If there are no detractors and
input is at system capacity, what is the utilization of each station?
(c)- Which station is the bottleneck?
(d)- What would be your recommendation for improving the throughput?

Q2)- (Alice’s Alterations): Alice’s Alterations has eight jobs to be completed and only one sewing machine
(and one sewing machine operator). The following jobs are waiting to be scheduled for the sewing machine.
The letter of the alphabet indicates the sequence in which the jobs arrived. It is now the beginning of Day 5.
Job Processing Time (in days) Promised Time (days)
A 5 10
B 8 15
C 6 15
D 3 20
E 10 25
F 14 40
G 7 45
H 3 50
(a)- Prioritize these jobs by SPT (shortest processing time) and EDD (Earliest Due Date) Schedules.
(b)- Prioritize these jobs by FCFS (First Come First Serve) and Moore’s Algorithm.
(c)- Evaluate your above four priority sequences on average flow time, average lateness, and number of jobs
late.
(d)- Based on your analysis in (c), what sequencing scheme would you select? Why?
Q3)- (Rocky Mountain): The Rocky Mountain Arsenal, formerly a chemical warfare manufacturing site, is
said to be one of the most polluted locations in the United States. Cleanup of chemical waste storage basins
will involve two operations. Operation 1: Drain and dredge basin. Operation 2: Incinerate materials.
Management estimates that each operation will require the following amounts of time (in days):

Management’s objective is to minimize the makespan of the cleanup operations. All storage basins are
available for processing right now.
(a)- First, find a schedule that minimizes the makespan.
(b)- Calculate the average flow time of a storage basin through the two operations.
(c)- What is the total elapsed time for cleaning all 10 basins? Display the schedule in a Gantt Chart form.
(d)- In how many of the jobs the Incineration Machine will have to wait and sit idle? How much money the
Incinerating Company will have to be paid in waste if the daily Rental of incinerating Machine is $300.

Q4)- (Atlas Inc.): Atlas Inc. is a toy bicycle manufacturing company producing a five-inch small version of
the bike that Lance Armstrong rode to win his first Tour de France. The assembly line at Atlas Inc. consists of
seven work stations, each performing a single step. Stations and processing times are summarized below.
• Step 1 (30 sec.): The plastic tube for the frame is cut to size.
• Step 2 (20 sec.): The tube is put together.
• Step 3 (35 sec.): The frame is glued together.
• Step 4 (25 sec.): The frame is cleaned.
• Step 5 (30 sec.): Paint is sprayed onto the frame.
• Step 6 (45 sec.): Wheels are assembled.
• Step 7 (40 sec.): All other parts are assembled to the frame.
Under the current process layout, workers are allocated to the stations as shown below.
• Worker 1: Steps 1, 2
• Worker 2: Steps 3, 4
• Worker 3: Step 5
• Worker 4: Step 6
• Worker 5: Step 7
(a)- What is the bottleneck in this process?
(b)- What is the capacity of this assembly line, in finished units/hour?
(c)- What is the utilization of Worker 4, ignoring the production of the first and last units?
(d)- How long does it take to finish production of 100 units, starting with an empty process?