A manufacturing company has a small production line dedicated to the production of a particular product. The line has four stations in serial. Inputs arrive at station 1 and the output from station 1 becomes the input to station 2. The output from station 2 is the input to station 3 and so on. The output from station 4 is the finished product. Station 1 can process 3,000 units per month, station 2 can process 2,900/month, station 3 can process 2,700/month, and station 4 can process 3,200/month.


a. What station sets the maximum possible output from this system?


b. What is that maximum output number?

Respuesta :

Answer:

(a) Station 3

(b) 2,700/month

Explanation:

In order to receive the finished product, it must go through all the processes. No one process can be skipped, as the final product would not be completed.

The slowest process in this case is refer to as the bottleneck, as it is the point where it stops the production line from going further. Hence, at station 3 units are being slowed down and no further units can be produced.

As the slowest processing station is station 3 and the whole project of producing the final product is determined by the slowest process. Therefore, the maximum output produced is 2,700/month.