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1) Groover (2007) defines a bottleneck as the slowest operation in the sequence,

ID: 394338 • Letter: 1

Question

1) Groover (2007) defines a bottleneck as the slowest operation in the sequence, and the operation that ultimately limits the production rate of the sequence. He then provides three reasons. Define each of the reasons below, then describe which factor you feel is the easiest for an IE to resolve, and why.

a. Technological factors

b. Work allocation decisions

c. Ergonomic limitations

d. Easiest factor for an IE to resolve:

2) Given the disadvantages of batch production, what are the reasons why it is so widely used in industry?

3). If all variables used in the calculation of the economic order quantity are known – meaning the annual demand, setup cost, and holding cost – what does an IE need to do in order to be able to reduce the EOQ size of batches? Why?

4) Why is cross-training valuable in a production work team? (1 point)

Explanation / Answer

1) According to Grover, there are three reasons for bottlenecks in a sequence including technological factors, work allocation decisions, and ergonomic limitations. Each of the reasons is defined as below:

  

2) In batch processing, the work units including products, materials, manpower and information are processed in finite quantities. This processing is widely used in manufacturing, service operations as well as logistics despite of its disadvantages like wastage of resources due to reconfiguration of production system, high idle time, and high labor movements. The reasons for using batch processing is-