The Frankenmuth Fasteners Co. was implementing lean throughout their shop floor

Question

The Frankenmuth Fasteners Co. was implementing lean throughout their shop floor and needed to determine the number of containers at several of their work centers. In one such work center, the demand was 200 parts per hour, and the containers they used for this part held 50 parts. It normally takes 6 hours for a full container to make a circuit through the work cell and back to its input side, and they desired to carry 12% safety stock in the system.

How many containers should the lean system be using?

Explanation / Answer

200 parts each hour will need 200/50 = 4 containers. Now each container will be busy for 6 hours. This means every hour the floor needs 4 containers. This means total of 6*4 = 24 containers per cycle is needed. Now 12% safety stock means that in addition to the 1200 parts every 6 hour there must also be additional 12% parts in the system. This means 1200*1.12 = 1344 parts in the system.

For this we shall need 1344/50 = 26.88 containers or 27 containers.

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