Mr Seah Seow Buay bizv450@nus.edu.

sg
Competitive Advantage : Fast food time, cost, quality, flexibility (Improve transformation process)
Other reasons e.g technological change, environmental change
Bottleneck : Longest time of process
Therefore it is common for the slowest process to be the front so as to remove inventory build up,
although machines behind will have idle time
DSC tutorial 1
1. Think of a product or a service that youd like to redesign, why? What are
some issues and trade-offs involved?
The computer mouse
The current computer mouse is very bulky and inefficient since it acts as a medium that translates
our hand movement on the mouse itself to the cursor movement. I would like to remove the need
for a mouse and integrate it into laptops and desktops.
Issues High level of competition, high barrier of entry, technologically high end area, people
accustomed to old mouse
Trade-offs Capital, time, comfort of gripping a mouse, ability to customise, more expensive laptops
and desktops.
2.
A
Process capacity = 1/36 + 1/35 (total of output of both workers) *if both are different process, do
not affect each other, cannot add*
Flow time = Average of 36+35 = 35.5
Flow rate = 1/36 + 1/35 apple per s assume plenty demand and sufficient supply
Inventory = FR*FT = 35.5*0.056349 = 2 apples
B
Process capacity = 1/24 apple per s
Flow time = 24 + 18 = 42s
Flow rate = 1/24 apple per s assume plenty demand and sufficient supply *if there are multiple
workers in each station, flow rate = slowest station*
Inventory = FR*FT = 42*1/24 = 1.75 apple
C
Process Capacity = 1/17
Flow time = 29
Flow rate = 1/17 assume plenty demand and sufficient supply
Inventory = FR*FT = 29*1/17 = 1.706
D
Process Capacity = 0.058824 apples/seconds
Decided by the size of the buffer in the middle, inventory in between can be infinite
Littles law can only be use when in steady state, we need to know the size of the buffer
Only when inventory in the middle is filled up, the 1
st
process will slow down to the slowest process
I.E 17
Rare event that slow process before fast process the 2
nd
process uses an expensive machine that
cannot afford to be idle
3a.
Capacity step 1 : 1/13 Xootr per min
Capacity step 2 : 1/11 Xootr per min
Capacity step 3 : 1/8 Xootr per min
Capacity of whole assembly = capacity of step 1 = 1/13 Xootr per min
3b.
Flow rate = 1/13 Xootr per min * 60 * 7 = 32.31 Xootr per day
Demand = 25 Xootr per day
Since demand < flow rate
Therefore flow rate = 25 Xootr per day = 3.571 Xootr per hour = 5/84 Xootr per min
Process is constrained by
1. Capacity
2. Demand
3. Supply

3c.
Step 1 : (5/84)/(1/13) *100 = 77.4%
Step 2 : (5/84)/(1/11)*100 = 65.5%
Step 3 : (5/84)/(1/8)*100 = 47.6%
4.
Flow rate = 255 passengers per hour
Inventory = 35
Flow time = 35/255 = 7/51 hour

35 = 255*waiting time
therefore waiting time = 0.137725
5.
Flow time = 10days
Inventory = 1200 skiers
Flow rate = 120 skier per day
Average inventory : average number of units in the system
Steady state : Average number has stabilised
Therefore we can apply Littles Law