Earth Buddy

This is a group assignment. Each learning group should prepare and submit a succinct analysis of
Q1-Q6 (below) by 11:59pm Jan. 22, 2023 on LEARN. The submission should be a maximum of
1500 words, excluding calculations. The cover page should clearly list the members of the
learning team. Note that this assignment is not graded but a penalty applies to late or incomplete
submissions. Moreover, the instructor could cold call groups to present their analysis during the
live portion of the session.

1. How many Earth Buddies can Ben expect to produce in one shift? How many if the
factory works two shifts? Three shifts? How many if it operates three shifts a day,
seven days a week? Which operation is the bottleneck?
2. If Ben asks his workers to produce at the same rate as the bottleneck operation how
long will each operator be idle during a shift? What would each operator’s utilization
be? What is the average utilization of the total system? What is the throughput time
for a typical Earth Buddy (assume three-shift operation)?
3. Anton has just received a large order from Wal-Mart, and anticipating more orders,
has asked Ben to increase production to 4,000 units per day. How should Ben
respond if one shift must produce the units? Two shifts?
4. Would your response to #3 change if Ben’s workers were cross-trained and able to
switch between jobs when otherwise idle? Which, if any, workers would you cross-
train?
5. Although no longer a serious problem, it was not uncommon in the firm’s early days
to reject 15% of the units. Assuming the defects occurred on or before the filling
operations, but were not detected until packing, what was the impact on capacity?
Would a special inspection after filling help?
6. Are there any process improvements that you could suggest to Ben?

Note: There is enough shelf space to hold 10,000 drying heads.

Notes:
 6 filling machine operators worked in parallel to produce the rounded shapes
 Operators place heads in plastic tote boxes that held batches of about 25 heads
 1 operator shaped the eye glasses
 3 moulding operators removed heads from tote boxes anf formed the nose and ears
 2 people working between the moulders place the eyeglasses over the nose and glued
small eyes inside the rims
 Each assembled earth buddy was placed in a bin for a painter
 Drying took about 5 hours but up to 7 on humid summer days
 10000 heads could dry at once
 After drying 2 packers placed the earth buddies in boxes and then into cartons for
shipment
 Work in process prior to drying was not large, typically 250 heads were at various stages
of completion between filling and painting but sometimes wip grew much larger
  Filling – 1.5 minutes
 Moulding – 0.8 minutes
 Eyes 0.4 minutes
 Eye glass fabrication – 0.2 minutes
 Painting 0.25 minutes
 Packing – 0.33 minutes
 7 hours of production from an 8 hour shift

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