1. As part of a major plant renovation project, the industrial engineering department has been asked to balance a revised assembly operation to achieve an output of 240 units per eight hour day. Task times and precedence relationships are as follows:

Do each of the following:
a. Draw the precedence diagram.
b. Determine the minimum cycle time, the maximum cycle time, and the calculated cycle time.
c. Determine the minimum number of stations needed.
d. Assign tasks to workstations on the basis of most following tasks. Use shortest processing time as a tiebreaker. If ties still exist, assume indifference in choice.
e. Compute the percentage of idle time for the assignment in part d.

2. A company that produces pleasure boats has decided to expand one of its lines. Current facilities are insufficient to handle the increased workload, so the company is considering three alternatives, A (new location), B (subcontract), and C (expand existing facilities). Alternative A would involve substantial fixed costs but relatively low variable costs: fixed costs would be $250,000 per year, and variable costs would be $500 per boat. Subcontracting would involve a cost per boat of $2,500, and expansion would require an annual fixed cost of $50,000 and a variable cost of $1,000 per boat.

a.       Find the range of output for each alternative that would yield the lowest total cost.

b.      Which alternative would yield the lowest total cost for an expected annual volume of 150 boats?