What is the cycle time?

9.11 Stanford Rosenberg Computing wants to establish an

assembly line for producing a new product, the Personal Digital

Assistant (PDA). The tasks, task times, and immediate predecessors

for the tasks are as follows:

TASK TIME (sec)EDECESSORS

Task Time Immediate Processor

A 12 –

B 15 A

C 8 A

D 5 B,C

E 20 D

 

Rosenberg’s goal is to produce 180 PDAs per hour.

a) What is the cycle time?

b) What is the theoretical minimum for the number of workstations

that Rosenberg can achieve in this assembly line?

c) Can the theoretical minimum actually be reached when workstations

are assigned?