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NAME: ___________________________________________

STUDENT NUMBER: ____________________

SCORE:____________

PRELIMS in PRODUCTION SYSTEMS


1. A firm cleans chemical tank cars in the Bay St. Louis area. With standard equipment,
the firm typically cleaned 70 chemical tank cars per month. They utilized 10 gallons
of solvent, and two employees worked 20 days per month, 8 hours a day. The
company decided to switch to a larger cleaning machine. Last April, they cleaned 60
tank cars in only 15 days. They utilized 12 gallons of solvent, and the two employees
worked 6 hours a day.
a. What was their productivity with the standard equipment? (3 pts)
b. What is their productivity with the larger machine? (3 pts)
c. What is the change in productivity? (4 pts)
2. The Dulac Box plant produces wooden packing boxes to be used in the local seafood
industry. Current operations allow the company to make 500 boxes per day, in two 8hour shifts (250 boxes per shift). The company has introduced some moderate
changes in equipment, and conducted appropriate job training, so that production
levels have risen to 300 boxes per shift. Labor costs average $10 per hour for each of
the 5 full-time workers on each shift. Capital costs were previously $3,000 per day,
and rose to $3,200 per day with the equipment modifications. Energy costs were
unchanged by the modifications, at $400 per day. What is the firm's multifactor
productivity before and after the changes? (10pts)
3. The network below represents a project being analyzed by Critical Path Methods.
Activity durations are A=5, B=2, C=12, D=3, E=5, F=1, G=7, H=2, I=10, and J=6.

a. What task must be on the critical path, regardless of activity durations? (3 pts)
b. What is the duration of path A-B-E-H-J? (3 pts)
c. What is the critical path of this network? (3 pts)
d. What is the length of the critical path? (3 pts)

e. If activity C were delayed by two time units, what would happen to the project
duration? (3 pts)
4. A network consists of the following list. Times are given in weeks.

a. Calculate the expected duration and variance of each activity. (4/4 pts)
b. Calculate the expected duration and variance of the critical path. (4/4 pts)
c. Calculate the probability that the project will be completed in less than 28 weeks.
(4 pts)
5. Bolling Electronics manufactures DVD players for commercial use. W Blaker Bolling,
president of Bolling Electronics, is contemplating producing DVD players for home
use. The activities necessary to build an experimental model and related data are
given in the following table:
Activity
A
B
C
D
E
F
G

Normal
Time
(wks)
3
2
1
7
6
2
4

Crash
Time
(wks)
2
1
1
3
3
1
2

Normal
Cost ($)

Crash Cost
($)

Immediate
Predecessor(s)

1,000
2,000
300
1,300
850
4,000
1,500

1,600
2,700
300
1,600
1,000
5,000
2,000

A
B
C
D,E

a. What is the project completion date? (5 pts)


b. Crash this project to 10 wks at the least cost. What is the total crash cost? (5 pts)

c. Crash this project to 7 weeks (which is the maximum it can be crashed) at the least
cost. What is the total crash cost? (5 pts)

Answers

2. MFP before: 500 boxes / ($10x5x16 + $3000 + $400) = 500 / 4200 = 0.119 boxes/dollar
MFP after: 600 boxes / ($10x5x16 + $3200 + $400) = 600 / 4400 = 0.136
boxes/dollar

(a) J; (b) 20; (c) A-B-G-I-J; ( (f) 24; (g) no impact.

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