1. Identify the four types of layouts and their characteristics.

2. The manufacturing engineers at Suny Manufacturing were working on a new remote- controlled toy Monster Truck. They hired a production consultant to help them determine the best type of production process to meet the forecasted demand for this new product. The consultant recommended that they use a product layout. He told the manufacturing engineers that the line must be able to product 600 Monster Trucks per day to meet the demand forecast. The workers in the plant work eight hours per day. The task information for the new Monster Truck is given below:

a. Draw the precedence diagram.

b. What is the takt time?

c. What is the theoretical minimum number of workstations?

d. Assign the tasks to the workstations to balance the line using the longest operating time rule.

e. What is the efficiency of the balanced line?

3. The Jazzy Java Company is considering upgrading its espresso machine to reduce the time to make each cup of coffee. The current machine has fixed costs of $3,000 per year and variable costs of $.75 per cup of coffee. With the new machine, fixed costs increase to $7,000 per year and variable costs are $.40 per cup of coffee. On average, the price of coffee is $3.00 per cup.

a. What is the break-even point of the current process?

b. What is the net income with the current process if 8,000 cups of coffee are sold per year?

c. What is the indifference point between the two processes?

d. If the forecast is for 12,500 cups of coffee to be sold each year, which process should be used? Why?

4. What is the benefit of cost of quality (COQ) analysis? Name and explain major cost categories identified by COQ. Why is quality at the source better than quality through inspection? Next, describe how each type of cost would change (increase, decrease, or remain the same) if we designed a higher-quality product that was easier to manufacture.