1. Kanban A work center uses Kanban containers that hold 300 parts. To pro- duce enough parts to fill the container, 90 minutes of setup plus run time are needed. Moving the container to the next workstation, waiting time, processing time at the next workstation, and return of empty container take 140 minutes. There is an overall demand rate of 9 units per minute. a. Calculate the number of containers needed for the system. b. What is the maximum inventory in the system? c. A quality team has discovered haw to reduce setup time by 65 minutes. If these changes are made, can the number of containers be reduced? a. Tis the time required for a container to complete an entire circuit, in this case, 90 minutes setup and run time plus 140 minutes to move the con- tainer through the rest of the circuit. n = DT/C = 9(90 + 140)/300 = 6.9 (round up to 7) b. Since production will stop when all containers are full, the maximum inventory is when all containers are full, that is, nC. nC = 7(300) = 2,100 en = DT/C = 9(25 + 140)/300 = 4.95 (round up to 5) ‘Yes, the number of containers can be reduced from 7 to 5.