You are designing the last station of a serial production line. You want the last station to be able to maintain a throughput of 500 units/day. You also want the cycle time through the last station (queue + processing time) to be 0.5 hours or less. Arrivals to the station will have moderate variability ( ca2 ? 1 ). You may choose any mean processing time for this station that you like, but the smaller the processing time the more costly the station. Assume a single machine at the station and that the SCV of processing times at the station is independent of its speed and is equal to 0.36. Express all final answers in minutes.

a. What range of mean processing times will give a stable system with a throughput of 500 units per day? Assume 24 hours of operation per day and one machine at the station. For this part, the cycle time constraint does not have to be met.

b. What mean processing time should you choose for this station? (HINT: Use Excel and Goal Seek or Solver)