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CIRCUIT BOARD FABRICATORS, INC.
BACKGROUND
Circuit Board Fabricators, Inc. (CBF)
• CBF is a small manufacturer of made-to-order circuit boards.
• Big companies such as Apple Computer and Hewlett-Packard use CBF to make boards for prototypes of new products. Thus, it is integral that CBF deliver quick and high-quality service.
• CBF’s plant was designed to produce 1000 boards per day on an 8-hour shift. However, this has yet to be achieved. At most, the plant only produces 700 boards in a day.
PROBLEM
How can CBF improve its daily production to achieve the intended 1000 boards per day quota?
ANALYSIS
CBF has four standard-size board configurations and has automated much of their process for making these boards. The company employs a batch shop process flow structure wherein it has a relatively stable line of products, each of which is produced in periodic batches, either to customer order, or for inventory (in this case, the former). In the manufacture of CBF’s circuit boards, the items follow the same flow pattern. Also, it is characterized by a somewhat standardized job shop because of its four stable standard lines of boards. (For an illustration of CBF’s operations, see Appendix A).
Considering morning, lunch and afternoon breaks, CBF runs 7.5 production hours per day (or 450 minutes per day), 5 days per week. The average job order is for 60 boards. CBF has a policy of increasing the job order by 25% to cover spoilage and defective units that are inherent in the process.
Given these specifications, the capacity of each of its operation processes is computed as follows:< ...