Bottleneck Cbf

What type of process flow structure is CBF using?

The company is using a batch shop process flow structure. CBF, Inc. bases its board

fabrication process on the average job size or on its typical order. This means that the

company proceeds with the manufacturing process in batches so as to meet the specific

requirements per order. The typical contract that the company currently gets is 60 boards

per order. However, due to persisting factory defects, they manufacture a total of 75 boards

per batch in order to compensate for 20% of the boards that they typically reject during the

process.

Flow - disconnected, with some dominant flows

Flexibility - moderate

Products - several

Capital investment - moderate

Variable cost - moderate

Labor content and skill - moderate

Volume - moderate

A batch process is similar to a job shop, except that the sequence of activities tends to be in a line and is less flexible. In a batch process, dominant flows can be identified. The activities, while in-line, are disconnected from one another. Products are produced in batches, for example, to fill specific customer orders.

A batch process executes different production runs for different products. The disadvantage is the setup time required to change from one product to the other, but the advantage is that some flexibility in product mix can be achieved.

3. Analyze the capacity of the process

The capacity of the flow process is at an imbalance. There is a significant amount of manual

labor in this flow process in which human error must be taken into consideration. It appears

that some of the stations may be run by an inefficient amount of operators. Lastly, with 6

employees on 6 machines for the final inspection, the end of the process should not take as

long as it does.

Bottleneck Process:

Output:

4. What is the impact of...