Question 1:

Metropolitan General Hospital is a city-owned and operated public hospital. Its emergency room is the largest and most prominent in the city. Approximately 70% of emergency cases in the city come or are sent toe Metro General's emergency room. As a result, the emergency room is often crowded and the staff is overworked, causing concern among hospital administrators and city officials about the quality of service and healthcare the emergency room is able to provide. One of the key quality attributes administrators focus on is patient waiting time - that is, the time between when a patient checks in and registers and when the patient first see an appropriate medical staff member. Hospital administration wants to monitor patient waiting time using statistical process control charts. At different times of the day over a period of several days, patient waiting times were recorded at random with the following results:

a) Develop an x chart to be used in conjunction with an R-chart to patient waiting time and indicate if the process appears to be in control.

b) The city has established a requirement that emergency room patients have a waiting time of 25 minutes +/- 5 minutes. Based on the results in part (a), is the emergency room capable of meeting the requirement with its current process?

Question 2:

a) Professional Image Briefcases is an exclusive producer of handcrafted, stylish cases. The company assembles each case with care and attention to detail. This laborious process requires the completion of the six primary work elements listed here.

i) Construct a precedence diagram for the manufacturing of briefcases. Compute the flow time required for assembling one briefcase and the cycle time necessary to assemble 50 cases in a 40-hour week. Balance and compute the line efficiency.

II) How would you change the line to produce 80 cases per week? What is the line efficiency?

b) Distinguish between a process layout and product layout. Give an example of each.

Question 3:

Allegheny Mountain Power and Light is an electric utility company with a large fleet of vehicles including automobiles, light trucks, and construction equipment. The company is evaluating four alternative strategies for maintaining its vehicles at the lowest cost: (1) take no preventive maintenance at all and repair vehicle components when they fail; (2) take oil samples at regular intervals and perform whatever preventive maintenance is indicated by the oil analysis; (3) change the vehicle oil on a regular basis and perform repairs when needed; and (4) change the oil at regular intervals and take oil samples regularly, performing maintenance repairs as indicated by
the sample analysis.

For autos and light trucks, strategy 1 (no preventive maintenance) cost nothing to implement and results in two possible outcomes: There is a 0.08 probability that a defective component will occur, requiring emergency maintenance at a cost of $1,600, or there is 0.92 probability that no defects will occur and no maintenance will be necessary.

Strategy 2 (take oil samples) cost $40 to implement (i.e. take a sample), and there is a 0.08 probability that there will be a defective part and 0.92 probability that there will not be a defect. If there is actually a defective part, there is a 0.7 probability the sample will correctly identify it, resulting in preventive maintenance at a cost of $500. However, there is a 0.3 probability that the sample will not identify the defect and indicate everything is okay, resulting in emergency maintenance later at a cost of $1,600. On the other hand, if there are actually no defects, there is a 0.2 probability that the sample will erroneously indicate that there is a defect, resulting in unnecessary maintenance at a cost of $230. There is a 0.8 probability that the sample will correctly indicate there are no defects, resulting in no maintenance and no costs.

Strategy 3 (changing the oil regularly) cost $34.80 to implement and has two outcomes: a 0.04 probability of a defective component, which will require emergency maintenance at a cost of $1,600, and a 0.96 probability that no defects will occur, resulting in no maintenance and no cost.

Strategy 4 (changing the oil and sampling) cost $54.80 to implement and results in the same probability f defects and no defects as in strategy 3. If there is a defective component, there is a 0.7 probability that the sample will detect it and $500 in preventive maintenance cost will be incurred. Alternatively, there is a 0.3 probability that the sample will not detect the defect, resulting in emergency maintenance at a cost of $1,600. If there is no defect, there is a 0.2 probability the sample will indicate there is a defect, resulting in an unnecessary maintenance cost of $250, and a 0.8 probability that the sample will correctly indicate no defects, resulting in no cost.

a) Develop a decision strategy for Allegheny Mountain Power and Light and indicate the expected value of this strategy.

For heavy construction equipment, emergency maintenance is much more expensive and cost $15,000. Required maintenance cost $2,000 and unnecessary maintenance cost $1,200. The cost of an oil change is $200 and the cost of taking an oil sample and analyzing it is $50. All the probabilities remain the same as for the autos and light trucks.

b) Determine the strategy the company should use for its heavy equipment.

b) From the example above, discuss why the strategy for heavy construction equipment is similar/different to that of autos and light trucks.

Question 4:

Quasar Enterprise use overtime, inventory, and subcontracting to absorb fluctuations in demand, An annual production plan is devised and updated quarterly. Expected demand over the next four quarters is 600, 800, 1600 and 1900 units, respectively. The capacity for regular production is 1000 units per quarter with an overtime capacity of 100 units per quarter. Subcontracting is limited to 500 units a quarter. Regular production costs $20 per unit, overtime $25 per unit, and subcontracting $30 per unit. Inventory holding costs are assessed at $3 per unit per period. There is no beginning inventory. Design a production plan that will satisfy demand at minimum costs. What is the minimum cost?

ASSIGNMENT 2

Question:

You are a Consultant specializing in Quality and Operations Management. A client in a business that you are familiar with is working to implement the ISO9001:2008 Quality Management System. As part of the process, you have been tasked with helping them to develop their Quality Manual which will document their quality management processes. If their existing quality management processes are not in compliance with the ISO9001:2008 requirements, make the changes necessary in their processes to ensure compliance and prepare the Quality Manual that they require. You need not go down to the level of procedures and work instruction but you do need to highlight that they have all the required documents.

In this assignment, students should demonstrate their understanding of:

1. The requirements of the ISO9001:2008 Quality Management System

2. The core processes of the client's operations and their linkages

3. The quality management processes that have to be in place in the client's core operations in order to meet the ISO9001:2008 standard requirements.

4. The approaches to adapt, as necessary, the client's core operations to meet the Quality objectives of the company and comply with ISO9001:2008 standard

Students would be assessed on the content as well as the quality of their presentation and marks would be given for referencing, style and originality as per the standard assignment assessment form. The content should fulfil the requirements of the Quality Manual in the ISO9001:2008 standard. Students should also provide a clear process diagram of the client's core processes and their linkages.