expected flow time. (lint: The flow time is in days, the sales in weeks; use a c

Question

expected flow time. (lint: The flow time is in days, the sales in weeks; use a common unit of measure.) b. Keeping the flow times and throughputs constant, determine if the process as currently described can be supported by $200 of inventory. If not, what options should you consider? 14. You have been asked to determine the average wait time for a process that has caused problems for the management of your company. From data you collected over a two-week period (which you feel are representative), you have determined the following: Average processing time: Average job arrival rate: Processing time, standard deviation: Arrival rates, standard deviation: 10 minutes 10 minutes 50 minutes 100 minutes a. What is the average wait time? b. If management wants to promise its customers an average wait time in the sys- tem of no more than 24 hours, what recommendations would you provide man- agement on how to change the operation of the process of concern? 15. You have been approached by one of the staff who works testing equipment that passes been repaired but now need to be tested to ensure that they can work under hig This means running them in your test labs. Because the test labs are as stressful on through your facility. Every day, you receive computers from the university that hie the ime in the

Explanation / Answer

In simple terms, the amount of time a job is ideal before the actual order is processed or the machine is setup is referred as wait time.

In any manufacturing scenario, orders are not processed immediately as soon as they are received, there are often certain activities like machines set up for specific jobs, trainings, specific testing etc., to be performed before the orders can be started to be processed / manufactured. The time between when the customer places an order and when actually the manufacturing processes actually starts for the product is often called the wait time.

Wait time affects both the customer and the manufacturer.

Arrival Time (AT)

Burst Time (BT)

Completion Time (CT)

Turnaround Time (TT)

Turnaround Time (TT) = Completion Time (CT) - Arrival Time (AT)

Waiting Time (WT)

Waiting Time (WT) = Turnaround Time (TT) – (BT)

Please note data for number of processes and average time taken for completion etc. along with burst time etc. is missing in the question hence the assumptions will be made. Please note gantt chart is also not provided in the question hence data will have to be assumed.

In this scenario assuming average processing time (completion time ) is 10 min and the average arrival time is 10 min hence the Turn around time will be

TT = CT - AT

TT = 10 -10 = 0 min

Following are the suggestions for management to reduce the wait time

Find the Bottlenecks

All the processes have one or the other type of dependencies and resulted bottlenecks. Wait times often result from bottlenecks. Even the optimum or the most efficient processes also have bottlenecks which result in hindering the process thus causing delay or wait.

Management should identify these bottlenecks and resolve them to reduce the wait time

Forward Facing approach / Ease in selection

When you visit the websites like amazon, it automatically suggests / recommends you products based on your past procurement or searches. Sometimes it might annoy you but this method enables the ease of navigation to customer also helps them find right set of products at the same time it gives the website an edge by promoting its product.

Often the wait time occurs since the customers are not able to find the right product thus addition of wait time, this kind of innovating forward facing approach can be used to ease the navigation. Make sure you have right set of tools and systems in place to guide the customer to right product and right place to buy those products.

Self-service option & Focus on customer expectations

In today’s world technology plays an important role in creating the self service options and enriching the customer experience. For websites like amazon where you get notifications / recommendations to buy products, customers will never buy a product just because its recommended, hence there needs to be a win-win scenario created for customer so that tend to buy products of your recommendation. This could be done by analyzing the buying patterns and creating specific deals for the customers which he / she wishes and then provide offers which customer cannot resist.

At the same time have a strong help group / customer care service available along with the technological advancements which customer can use and rely upon to get their queries resolved and are enabled to buy products without any hindrance in the entire process

Using the technology and data identify the customer behavior and then try to come up with an analysis of customer needs and then provide them what they actually are looking for.

Optimize your Process

Study the entire processes, hire experts to identify the critical processes and the dependencies and bottlenecks & gaps.

Plug those gaps by enabling your staff by providing them required tools and technologies, trainings etc. using which the redundant processes and items can be removed thus optimizing the process.

Create contingency plans for when employees call out.

Always prepare for a rainy day and plan in advance for the backup and fallback plans for all the critical and non-critical processes. Try mainlining the right level of resources to ensure nonstop end to end processes flow, at the same time develop a cross functional multi-tasking task force to handle all sort of crisis.

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