Production Concepts and Mathematical Models

1. Cycle Time: Cycle Time Analysis

For a unit operation the cycle time - is the time that one work unit spends being
processed or assembled. It is the time interval between when one work unit begins
processing (or assembly) and when the next unit begins. But, not all of this is processing
time. In a machining, consists of
1. Actual processing time,
2. Work part handling time, and
3. Tool handling time per workpiece.

Mathematically it can be expressed as:

Where, = cycle time, min/pc; = time of the actual processing or assembly

operation, min/pc; = handling time, min/pc; and = average tool handling time,
min/pc, if such an activity is applicable.
Tool handling time consists of time spent changing tools when they wear out, time changing
from one tool to the next, tool indexing time for indexable inserts or for tools on a turret
lathe or turret drill, tool repositioning for a next pass, and so on.

2. Production Rate
For a unit production the production rate- is a work units completed per hour (pc/hr.); the
work unit is the part or product being processed or assembled.
In job shop production When quantity Q = 1, the production time per work unit is the sum
of setup and cycle times:

Where, = average production time, min/pc; = the time to prepare the machine to

produce the part, min/pc; = cycle time.

Figure 1 Types of production operations: (a) job shop with production quantity Q = 1, (b) sequential batch
production, (c) simultaneous batch production, (d) quantity mass production, and (e) flow-line mass production.
Key: Proc = process. (Source: Groover, Mikell P. Automation, Production Systems, and Computer-Integrated
Manufacturing. Upper Saddle River: Pearson Higher Education, Inc., 2015. Page: 48)

The production rate for the unit operation is simply the reciprocal of production time,
usually expressed as an hourly rate:

where = hourly production rate, pc/hr.; = production time and the constant 60

converts minutes to hours.

When the production quantity is greater than one, the analysis is the same as in batch
production. In sequential batch processing, the time to process one batch consisting of Q
work units is the sum of the setup time and processing time; that is,

where = batch processing time, min/batch; = setup time to prepare the

machine for the batch, min/batch; Q = batch quantity, pc/batch; and = cycle time per
work unit, min/cycle.
For example, the mold in a plastic injection molding operation contains two cavities, so that
two moldings are produced each cycle.
In simultaneous batch processing the time to process a batch consisting of Q work units is
the sum of the setup time and processing time; that is,

where = batch processing time, min/batch; = setup time, min/batch; and =

cycle time per batch, min/cycle.
To obtain the average production time per work unit for the unit operation, the batch

time is divided by the batch quantity:

For quantity-type mass production the production rate equals the cycle rate of the
machine (reciprocal of operation cycle time) after production is underway and the effects of
setup time become insignificant. That is, as Q becomes very large, and

where = operation cycle rate of the machine, pc/hr., and = operation cycle time,
min/pc.

For flow-line mass production the production rate approximates the cycle rate of the
production line, again neglecting setup time. However, the operation of production lines is
complicated by the interdependence of the workstations on the line. One complication is
that it is usually impossible to divide the total work equally among all of the workstations
on the line; therefore, one station ends up with the longest operation time, and this station
sets the pace for the entire line. The term bottleneck station is sometimes used to refer to
this station. Also included in the cycle time is the time to move parts from one station to the
next at the end of each operation.
In many production lines All work units on the line are moved synchronously, each to its
respective next station. The cycle time of a production line is the longest processing (or
assembly) time plus the time to transfer work units between stations. This can be
expressed as

where = cycle time of the production line, min/cycle; Max = the operation time at
the bottleneck station (the maximum of the operation times for all stations on the line,
min/cycle); and = time to transfer work units between stations each cycle, min/cycle.
is analogous to . The tool handling time is usually accomplished as a
maintenance function and is not included in the calculation of cycle time. Theoretically,
the production rate can be determined by taking the reciprocal of as;

where = theoretical or ideal production rate, but call it the cycle rate to be more
precise, cycles/hr., and = cycle time.

The preceding equations for cycle time and production rate ignore the issue of defective
parts and products made in the operation. Although perfect quality is an ideal goal in
manufacturing, the reality is that some processes produce defects.

3. Production Capacity
Production capacity is the maximum rate of output that a production facility (or production
line, or group of machines) is able to produce under a given set of assumed operating
conditions. The production facility usually refers to a plant or factory, and so the term
plant capacity is often used for this measure. One might say that plant capacity is to the
aggregate plant operation as production rate is to the unit operation. The assumed
operating conditions refer to the number of shifts per day (one, two, or three), number of
days in the week that the plant operates, employment levels, and so forth.
The number of hours of plant operation per week is a critical issue in defining plant
capacity. For continuous chemical production in which the reactions occur at elevated
temperatures, the plant is usually operated 24 hours per day, seven days per week (168
hours per week).

On the other hand, many discrete product plants operate one shift per day, five days per
week. For an automobile final assembly plant, capacity is typically defined as one or two
shifts, depending on the demand for the cars made in the plant.

In situations when demand is very high, three production shifts may be used. A trend in
manufacturing is to define plant capacity for the full 7-day week, 24 hours per day. This is
the maximum time available, and if the plant operates fewer hours, then it is operating at
less than its full capacity. To measure the quantity of plant capacity, Let
PC = the production capacity of a given facility, where the measure of capacity is the
number of units produced per time period (e.g., week, month, year),
n = production machines in the plant and they all produce the same part or product, which
implies quantity-type mass production,
= the number of hours in the period being used to measure production capacity (or

plant capacity).
= production capability of each machine at the same rate of units per hour. Then,

Table 1 Number of hours of plant operation for various periods and operating conditions.

Period
Operating Conditions Week Month Year
One 8-hr shift, 5 days/week, 50 weeks/year 40 167 2000
Two 8-hr shifts, 5 days/week, 50 weeks/year 80 333 4000
Three 8-hr shifts, 5 days/week, 50 weeks/year 120 500 6000
One 8-hr shift, 7 days/week, 50 weeks/year 56 233 2800
Two 8-hr shifts, 7 days/week, 50 weeks/year 112 467 5600
Three 8-hr shifts, 7 days/week, 50 weeks/year 168 700 8400
24 hr./day, 7 days/week, 52 weeks/year (24/7) 168 728 8736
Assumes that all machines are operating full time during the entire period defined by .

Example-1: Production Capacity

The automatic lathe department has five machines, all devoted to the production of the
same product. The machines operate two 8-hr shifts, 5 days/week, 50 weeks/year.
Production rate of each machine is 15 unit/hr. Determine the weekly production capacity
of the automatic lathe department.
Solution:

= 2 shifts/day*8 hrs./shift*5days/week

= 80hrs./week
PC = 5(80) (15) = 6,000 pc/wk.

In cases in which different machines produce different parts at different production rates,
the following equation applies for quantity-type mass production:

where n = number of machines in the plant, and

= hourly production rate of machine i, and all machines are operating full time during

the entire period defined by .

In job shop and batch production, each machine may be used to produce more than one
batch, where each batch is made up of a different part style j.

Let = the fraction of time during the period that machine i is processing part style j.

Under normal operating conditions, it follows that for each machine i,

where for all i

The 0 in this equation indicates that the machine is idle during the entire week.
Values between 0 and 1 mean that the machine experiences idle time during the week.
The 1 in this equation means that the machine is utilized 100% of the time during the week.
If the upper limit is exceeded , then this can be interpreted as the machine being

used on an overtime basis beyond the number of hours in the definition of plant

capacity.

The production output of the plant that include the effect of operation sequence for part or
product j, where = the number of operations in the operation sequence for that part

is given by:

where = average hourly plant production rate, pc/hr.;

= production rate of machine i when processing part j, pc/hr.; and .

The individual values of are determined based on specifically:

where

where = average production time for part j on machine i, min/pc;

= setup time for part j on machine i, min/batch; and

= batch quantity of part j, pc/batch.

The plant output for a given period of interest (e.g., week, month, year) can be determined
based on the average hourly production rate.

For example, weekly plant output is given by the following:

where = weekly plant production rate for the plant, pc/wk.;

= average hourly production rate for the plant, pc/hr.; and

= number of hours in the week.

 If the period of interest is a month, then

If the period is a year, then

Most manufacturing is accomplished in batches, and most manufactured products require a

sequence of processing steps on multiple machines. Just as there is a bottleneck station in
flow-line production, it is not unusual for certain machines in a given plant to limit the
production output of the plant. They determine the plant capacity. These machines operate
at 100% utilization while other machines in the sequence have lower utilizations.

The net result is that the average equipment utilization in the plant is less than 100%, but
the plant is still operating at its maximum capacity due to the limitations of these
bottleneck operations.
If this is the situation, then weekly production capacity is given by Equation;

Example-2 Weekly Production Rate

A small machine shop has two machines and works 40 hr./wk. During a week of interest,
four batches of parts were processed through these machines. Batch quantities, batch
times, and operation sequences for the parts are given in the table below. Determine

a) weekly production output of the shop

b) whether this represents the weekly plant capacity.

Machine 1 Machine 2
Part Duration Duration

A 25 pc/hr. 12 hr. 30 pc/hr. 10 hr.

B 10 pc/hr. 20 hr.
C 7.5 pc/hr. 24 hr.
D 20 pc/hr. 6 hr.
Solution:
a. To determine the weekly production output, the values are determined as follows,

given 40 hr. per week:

, , , , and .

The fraction of idle time on machine 1 is = = 0.20. Noting that part A has 2 operations in

its operation sequence and the other parts have 1, the hourly production rate of parts
completed in the plant is given:

= 20 pc/hr.

Weekly production output = 40(20) = 800 pc/wk.

b. Machine 2 is operating the full 40 hr./wk. Given the part mix in the problem, machine 2
is the bottleneck in the plant, and so the 800 pc/wk. represents plant capacity: =
800 pc/wk.

Interpretation: Machine 1 is only operating 32 hr./wk., so it might be inferred from the

situation that the production of part B could be increased by 80 units (8 hr. * 10 pc/hr.) to
achieve a plant capacity of 880 pc/wk.
The question is whether there would be a demand for those 80 additional units of part B.

4. Utilization and Availability

Utilization: It is the proportion of time that a productive resource (e.g., a production
machine) is used relative to the time available under the definition of plant capacity.
Expressing this as an equation,
where = utilization of machine i, and = the fraction of time during the available

hours that machine i is processing part style j.

An overall utilization for the plant is determined by averaging the Ui values over the
number of machines:

During one week the production rates of the parts produced that week were might be
high/low; therefore, the output might be higher/lower than the average of the parts
produced. To deal with this possible inconsistency, plant capacity is sometimes reported as
the workload corresponding to the output produced during the period.

Workload is defined as the total hours required to produce a given number of units during
a given week or other period of interest. That is,

where WL = workload, hr.; = number of work units produced of part style j on machine

i during the period of interest; and = average production time of part style j on

machine i.

5. Manufacturing Lead Time (MLT)

It is the total time required to process a given part or product through the plant, including
any time due to delays, parts being moved between operations, time spent in queues, and
so on.

Production usually consists of a sequence of unit processing operations. Between the unit
operations are these nonproductive elements, which typically consume large blocks of time.
Thus, production activities can be divided into two categories, unit operations and
nonoperation times.

Questions: Why do these non-operation times occur? Why not just take the parts
straightaway from one operation to the next without these delays?
Answer: Some of the reasons why nonoperation time occurs between unit operations are
the following:
1. Time spent transporting batches of parts between operations,
2. Buildup of queues of parts waiting before each operation,
3. Buildup of queues of parts after each operation waiting to be transported to the next
operation,
4. Less than optimal scheduling of batches,
5. Part inspections before and/or after unit operations,
6. Equipment breakdowns resulting in lost production time, and
7. Workload imbalances among the machines that perform the operations required for
a given part or product style, with some machines being 100% utilized while others
spend much of the time waiting for work.

Let = the operation cycle time at a given machine, and

= the non-operation time associated with each operation.
Further, suppose that the number of separate operations (machines) through which the
work unit must be routed = .

In batch production, there are Q work units in the batch. A setup is generally required to
prepare each machine for the particular product, which requires a time = . Given
these terms, manufacturing lead time for a given batch is defined as;

where = manufacturing lead time for a batch of part or product j, min; = setup

time for operation i on part or product j, min; = quantity of part or product j in the

batch being processed, pc; = cycle time for operation i on part or product j, min/pc;

= nonoperation time associated with operation i, min; and i indicates the operation

sequence in the processing, i = 1, 2,…, .

The MLT equation does not include the time the raw work part spends in storage before its
turn in the production schedule begins. Neither does it take into account availability
(reliability) of equipment. The effect of equipment availability is assumed to be factored
into the nonoperation time between operations. The average manufacturing lead time over
the number of batches to be averaged is given by the following:

where MLT = average manufacturing lead time, min, for the batches (parts or products)
over which the averaging procedure is carried out, and = lead time for batch j.

In the extreme case in which all of the parts or products are included in the averaging
procedure, = P, where P = the number of different part or product styles made by the
factory.

To simplify matters and enhance conceptualization of this aspect of factory operations,

properly weighted average values of batch quantity, number of operations per batch, setup
time, operation cycle time, and nonoperation time can be used for the batches being
considered. With these simplifications:

where MLT = average manufacturing lead time for all parts or products in the plant, min;
and the terms Q, , , , and are all average values for these parameters.

For a job shop in which the batch size is one (Q = 1);

In the case of quantity-type mass production in which a large number of units are made
on a single machine ( = 1), MLT is the operation cycle time for the machine plus the
nonoperation time. In this case, consists of the time parts spend in queues before and
after processing.
The transportation of parts into and out of the machine is likely to be accomplished in
batches. This definition assumes steady-state operation after the setup has been completed
and production begins.

For flow-line mass production, the entire production line is set up in advance. If the
workstations are integrated so that all stations are processing their own respective work
units, then the time to accomplish all of the operations is the time it takes each work unit to
progress through all of the stations on the line plus the nonoperation time.

Again, consists of the time parts spend in queues before and after processing on the
line. The station with the longest operation time sets the pace for all stations:

where MLT = time between start and completion of a given work unit on the line, min; no =
number of operations on the line; Tr = transfer time, min; Max To = operation time at the
bottleneck station, min; and Tc = cycle time of the production line, min/pc,

Tc = Max To + Tr

Because the number of stations on the line is equal to the number of operations (n = no),
then; where the symbols have the same meaning as above, and n (number of workstations)
has been substituted for number of operations no.

Example-3 Manufacturing Lead Time

A certain part is produced in batch sizes of 100 units. The batches must be routed through
five operations to complete the processing of the parts. Average setup time is 3.0 hr./batch,
and average operation time is 6.0 min/pc. Average nonoperation time is 7.5 hr. for each
operation. Determine the manufacturing led time to complete one batch, assuming the
plant runs 8 hr./ day, 5 days/wk.

Solution: Given = 3.0 hr. and = 7.5 hr., the manufacturing lead time for this batch
is computed, where the symbol j refers to the fact that only one part style is being
considered.
MLTj = 5(3.0 + 100( + 7.5) = 5(20.5) = 102.5 hr

At 8 hr./day, this amounts to = 12.81 days

6. Work-in- process (WIP)
It is the quantity of parts or products currently located in the factory that either are being
processed or are between processing operations. WIP is inventory that is in the state of
being transformed from raw material to finished part or product. An approximate measure
of work-in-process calculated based on Little’s formula:

where WIP = work-in-process in the plant, pc; = hourly plant production rate, pc/hr.;

and MLT= average manufacturing lead time, hr. WIP = the rate at which parts flow through
the factory multiplied by the length of time the parts spend in the factory. Effects of part
queues, equipment availability, and other delays are accounted for in the nonoperation
time, which is a component of MLT.

Work-in-process represents an investment by the firm, but one that cannot be turned into
revenue until all processing has been completed. Many manufacturing companies sustain
major costs because work remains in-process in the factory too long.

Example-4 Work-In-Process
Average batch quantity = 100 units, average setup time = 3.0 hr. per batch, number of
operations per batch = 5, and average operation time is 6.0 min per piece for the population
of parts made in the plant. Nonoperation time = 7.5 hr. The plant has 20 production
machines that are 100% utilized (setup and run time), and it operates 40 hr./wk.
Determine
a. Weekly plant production rate.
b. Work-in-process for the plant.

Solution: a. Production rate:

Average hourly production rate Rp = = 7.69 pc/hr. for each machine.

Weekly production rate for the plant can be determined by using this average value of
production rate per machine as follows:
b. Given U = 100% = 1.0, WIP = (MLT) = 30.77(102.5) = 3,154 pc.

Interpretation:
Three observations carry out for attention in this example and the previous one.
1. In part (a), given that the equipment is 100% utilized, the calculated weekly
production rate of 1,230 pc/wk. must be the plant capacity. Unless the 40 hr. of plant
operation is increased, the plant cannot produce any more parts than it is currently
producing.

2. In part (b), with 20 machines each processing one part at a time, it means that 3,154
- 20 = 3,134 parts are in a nonoperation mode. At any given moment, 3,134 parts in
the plant are waiting or being moved.

3. With five operations required for each part, each operation taking 6 min, the total
operation time for each part is 30 min. From the previous example, the average total
time each part spends in the plant is 102.5 hr. or 6,150 min. Thus, each part spends
= 0.995 or 99.5% of its time in the plant waiting or being moved.