Problems 295

five days and need to be scheduled at the company. It is currently November 10 and Tom works
a seven-day week.

Processing Time (Days)

Arrival Job/WC
Order Date Routing WC 1 WC 2 WC 3
(B)iff Nov. 10 1-3-2 1 3 1
(G)riff Nov. 10 2-3-1 2 2 2
(H)erbie Nov. 12 3-2-1 3 1 2
(K)erri Nov. 14 2-1-3 1 3 1

Assume that the material for all orders is ready for processing as soon as the orders arrive and
that a first-come/first-served sequencing rule is used at all work centers. All three work centers
are idle as work begins on orders B and G on November 10.
a. Construct a Gantt chart depicting the processing and idle times for the three work centers for
these four jobs.
b. How many days does each job wait in queue for processing at work center 2?
2. The production manager at the Knox Machine Company is preparing a production schedule for
one of the fabrication shops machines, the P&W grinder. He has collected the following infor-
mation on jobs currently waiting to be processed at this machine. (There are no other jobs, and
the machine is empty.)

Machine Processing Date Job Arrived Job Due

Job Time, Days* at this Machine Date
A 4 6-23 8-15
B 1 6-24 9-10
C 5 7-01 8-01
D 2 6-19 8-17

*Note: This is the final operation for each of these jobs.

a. The production manager has heard about three dispatching rules: the shortest operation next
rule, the first-come/first-served rule, and the earliest due date rule. In what sequence would
these jobs be processed at the P&W grinder if each rule were applied?
b. If its now the morning of July 10 and the shortest operation next rule is used, when would
each of the four jobs start and be completed on the P&W grinder? (Express your schedule
in terms of the calendar dates involved, assuming that there are seven working days each
week.)
3. Jobs A, B, and C are waiting to be started on machine center X and then be completed on
machine center Y. The following information pertains to the jobs and work centers.

Hours Allowed for Hours Allowed for Day

Job Machine Center X Machine Center Y When Due
A 36 20 10
B 96 24 17
C 60 28 25
296 Chapter 8 Production Activity Control

Machine center X and machine center Y have 40 hours of capacity per week (5 working days per
week, eight hours/day). Two days are allowed to move jobs between machine centers.
a. If these jobs are rescheduled by earliest due date, can they be completed on time?
b. Can they be completed on time using the critical ratio technique?
c. Can the jobs be completed on time (using the earliest due date or critical ratio technique) if
20 hours of overtime are run in work center X each week?
d. Can the jobs be completed on time (using the earliest due date or critical ratio technique) if
only one day is required between operations?
4. The customer for job B in problem 3 has agreed to take half the order on day 17 and the rest on
day 28. Use earliest due date rule to schedule the four jobs (A, Bl, B2, C). Can they be completed
on time, assuming no extra setup time is required for splitting job B?
5. Ms. Mona Hull is in charge of a project to build a 50-foot yacht for a wealthy industrialist from
Jasper, Indiana. The yacht is scheduled to compete in the famous Lake Lemon Cup Race. Eight
weeks remain for constructing the yacht. Assume that each week consists of 5 workdays, for a
total lead time of 40 days. The work required to complete the yacht comprises 10 operations,
4 days for each.
a. On Tuesday morning of week 3, 3 of the 10 operations had been completed and the yacht was
waiting for the fourth operation. Whats the critical ratio priority?
b. Whats the critical ratio priority if only 2 of the 10 operations are completed by Tuesday morn-
ing of week 3?
6. Big Dans Machine Shop is considering the use of a priority scheduling rule in the fabrication
shop and must decide whether to use: (1) critical ratio (CR), (2) earliest due date (EDD),
(3) shortest operation next (SON), or (4) order slack. The current shop status of the company is
given here:

Order Total Remaining Time Remaining Current Operation

Number Manufacturing Time until Due Date Processing Time
1 15 12 8
2 12 15 5
3 10 14 4
4 15 18 3
5 20 19 6

a. Using the four sequencing rules, compute the scheduling priority for each order given in the
table above.
b. What order should be run first under each of these scheduling rules?
7. Maruchecks makeshift manufacturing facility had three departments: shaping, pickling, and
packing. Maruchecks orders averaged 100 pieces each. Each of the three shaping machines re-
quired one hour setup, but could run a piece in one minute. The pickling department lowered bas-
kets of pieces into brine tanks and subjected them to low-voltage current, a heating and cooling,
and a rinse. The whole process took four hours for any number of baskets or pieces. The only
brine tank could hold four baskets, each of which could contain 50 pieces. (Baskets were loaded
while another load was in the tank.) Each piece was inspected and wrapped in bubble pack in the
packing department. Each of the four people in the department could do this at the rate of
25 pieces per hour. Marucheck had heard of the theory of constraints (TOC) and wanted to iden-
tify the bottleneck department. Which is it?
 Problems 297

EXHIBIT A
Time Current Total
Manufacturing Remaining Operation Number of Processing
Order Lead Time Until Processing Operations Time
Number Remaining Due Date Time Remaining Remaining
1 15 7 2 3 8
2 15 11 3 4 8
3 20 2 5 2 8
4 15 5 4 3 8
5 15 3 1 12 8

Note: Time is measured in days. Manufacturing lead-time remaining includes both the machine processing time and the length of time
orders spend moving and waiting to be processed in a machine queue. Current operation processing time (as well as total processing time
remaining) includes no move or queue times.

8. The Ace Machine Company is considering using a priority scheduling rule in its fabrication shop
and must decide whether to use: the critical ratio rule, the order slack rule, the shortest operation
next rule, or the slack per operation rule. Exhibit A shows the companys current inventory and
shop status.
a. State the formula for calculating the priority index for each of sequencing rules given
previously.
b. Compute the scheduling priority for each order in Exhibit A, four sequencing rules.
9. The Optima Shop has two work centers: Big Mess and No Problem. The Monday list of orders to be
filled this week shows the total setup and total run time requirements (in hours) at the two centers.
Joe Biggs, the scheduler of Optima, said his first criterion is to minimize setups, and the
second is to prioritize customer orders in numerical order.
a. How should he schedule part production in the two centers? (Please illustrate using a Gantt
chart.)
b. Can customer delivery promises be met without overtime if capacity is 40 hours in each work
center?
c. How does the answer to part b change if only one person is assigned to do the setup in both
work centers?
d. Is the schedule consistent with the TOC philosophy?

Big Mess No Problem

Customer order 1 Part A: setup 5, run 10 Part C: setup 1, run 2
Part B: setup 2, run 5
Customer order 2 Part A: setup 5, run 3 Part D: setup 2, run 2
Customer order 3 Part B: setup 2, run 5 Part C: setup 1, run 3

10. The XYZ Company uses MRP to plan and schedule plant operations. The plant operates five days
per week with no overtime, and all orders are due at 8 a.m. Monday of the week required. Its now
8 a.m. Monday of week 1, all machines are currently idle, and the production manager has been
given the information in Exhibit B.
a. Assuming that the shortest operation next rule is used to schedule orders in the shop, how
should the open orders (scheduled receipts) for items A, B, and C be sequenced at their cur-
rent operations? What are the implications of this schedule?