Question

Wally's Widget Warehouse takes orders from 7 A.M. to 7 P.M. The manager wants to analyze the process and has provided the process flow diagram shown below. There are three steps required to ship a customer order. The first step is to take the order from a customer. The second step is to pick the order for the customer and then they have to pack the order ready for shipping. Wally promises that every order placed today gets shipped tomorrow. That means that the picking and packing operation must finish all orders before they go home. Customers - Order Taker (100 Customers/hour) - Customer Orders - Pick Orders (80 Customers/hour) - Picked Orders - Pack Orders (60 Customers/hours) - Wait for Shipper.

Wally wants to figure out the following.

a. What is the current maximum output of the process? b. How long will the picking and packing operations have to work if we have a day where the order taker works at its maximum capacity.c.Given b, what is the maximum order waiting to be picked d.Given b, What is the maximum number of orders waiting to be packed? e. If we double the packing capacity (from 60 to 120 orders per hour), what impact does this have on your answers in parts b, c, and d ?

Answer 1

a. Current Maximum Output = Minimum of orders, picking and packing * Hours of operation

i.e. 60 * 12 = 720

b. Order Taker can take maximum of 100 orders per day which amounts to 1200 orders per day

Time required for picking = 1200/80 = 15 hours

Time required for packing = 1200/60 = 20 hours

c. Excess Time = 3 hours

Maximum orders waiting to be picked = 3*80 = 240

d. Excess Time = 8 hours

Maximum orders waiting to be packed = 8*60 = 480

e.

Changes in b -

Time required for packing = 1200/120 = 10 hours

Changes in c - No change

Changes in d -

Excess Time = 0 hours, rather there is spare capacity of 2 hours

Maximum orders waiting to be packed = NIL