Question: The work content for a product assembled on a manual production line is 48 min. The work is transported using a continuous overhead conveyor that operates at a speed of 5 ft/min. There are 24 workstations on the line, one third of which have two workers: the remaining stations each have one worker. Repositioning time per worker is 9 sec, and uptime efficiency of the line is 95%.
(a) What is the maximum possible hourly production rate if the line is assumed to be perfectly balanced?
(b) If the actual production rate is only 92% of the maximum possible rate determined in pan (a), what is the balance delay on the line?
(c) if the line is designed so that the tolerance time is 1.3 times the cycle time, what is the total length of the production line, and what is the elapsed time a product spends on the line?