Manegment

In annex, we have a diagram, from the Beltsville facility, that describes the time spent per bed in each operation and the set-up time spent per batch, in order to clean the space and move on to the next operation.

Our aim is to calculate the Flow rate of this process and in order to achieve it we started with the assumption that total time spent per bed in each operation is equal to the time spent in each operation plus the time spent preparing the same operation (the previous set-up time):

| Previous Set-up time | Time spent per bed | Total time per bed |

Cut | 15 | 37.5 | 52.5 |

Plane | 10 | 38.4 | 48.4 |

Router | 10 | 48 | 58 |

Drill | 10 | 28 | 38 |

Sand | 25 | 24 | 49 |

Stain | 15 | 12 | 27 |

Polyurethane | 45 | 90 | 135 |

Kit Assembly | 0 | 40 | 40 |

Cleating | 0 | 15 | 15 |

Prepackage | 0 | 10 | 10 |

In accordance with those results, in order to achieve the Flow rate we have to calculate Bottleneck. The Bottleneck occurs when the performance or capacity of an entire system is limited by a single or limited number of components or resources. So we divided one hour (sixty minutes) by each operation’s total time per bed, and we concluded that the bottleneck happen on the Polyurethane operation. Thus, the Flow rate of the process is 0,444 beds.

With one worker we can predict that the flow time is 7 hours and 52 minutes (it takes 7h52 minutes for one worker to make one bed). But with one worker per activity (with no buffer) the first bed takes 7 hours and 52 minutes to be made and afterwards every 135 minutes one bed is complete.

Given the values above, we can easily calculate the Capacity Utilization rate of each operation. The Capacity Utilization rate refers to the relationship between actual Bunk- Beds that are produced with the installed equipment and the potential Bunk-Beds which 'could' be produced with it, if capacity was fully used. Thus, we just need to divide each operation’s total time spent per bed by the Bottleneck’s...