COMM204 Logistics and Operations Management Practice Questions For Midterm Part I. Multiple Choice Questions

COMM204 Logistics and Operations Management
Practice Questions for Midterm
Part I. Multiple choice questions.

1. The following table presents the data taken from a security screening process in an
airport. The data are for a 4-hour shift in 1 hour time slots, e.g. 37 people arrive
between 6:00 and 7:00, etc. What is the average number of passengers waiting for the
screening (i.e. the average inventory) for the 4-hour shift?
Input rate Capacity rate

Time
(passengers/hr) (passengers/hr)
7:00 37 60
8:00 61 60
9:00 63 60
10:00 40 60
A. 0; B. 0.25; C. 0.75; D. 1; E. None of the above

E
2. Consider a manufacturing facility. Suppose the starting inventory is 50 units and the
instantaneous inventory accumulation is 5 units per hour. What is the average
inventory of a 4-hour shift?
A. 50 units B. 60 units C. 70 units
D. 20 units E. None of the above
B
3. A gas station can simultaneously fill 5 motor vehicles and each vehicle on average
requires 10 minutes to finish filling gasoline. What is the maximum number of
vehicles this station can serve in one hour?
A. 6; B. 12; C. 30; D. 50; E. None of the above
C
4. If the capacity rate of a process is 100 units per hour and the input rate is 150 units
per hour, what is the hourly throughput rate (assume there is no interruption, such as
machine breakdown and set-ups)?
A. 150 units; B. 125 units; C. 100 units; D. Unknown;
E. None of the above
C
5. If a piece of equipment is at best operating at a rate of 400 units per hour and the
actual capacity used during an hour is 300 units, which of the following is the
capacity utilization rate?
A. 1.33; B. 2.33; C. 1.00; D. 0.75; E. None of the above
D
6. The Ministry of Health Services, British Columbia, announced the following data:
Average Patients 400

Average Wait Time 20 months
Average Surgeries Performed x
per month
According to the knowledge you learned from this course, what should x be?
A. 10 B. 20 C. 40 D. 100
E. None of the above
B
Consider the following flow diagram for processing a customer order, where each order
is either Type A or Type B.
The exact processing times and the resources needed for each activity are listed in the
table below.
Activity Time (minutes) Resources Used

1 10 Category I
2A 10 Category I
2B 30 Category II
3 10 Category I
There is one unit of Resource Category I in the system, and there are two units of
Resource Category II in the system. Customers currently arrive at the rate of 2.5 per
hour; one-fifth of the customers are Type A, and four-fifths of the customers are Type
B. Product A generates a marginal profit of $100 per unit; product B generates a
marginal profit of $110 per unit.
7. What is the bottleneck?

A. Category I B. Category II C. Activity 2A
D. Activity 2B E. None of the above
A
8. What is the implied utilization of Category II?
A. 33% B. 50% C. 92% D. 100%

E. 40%
E
Part II. Short answer question.

1. A process flow map is as follows. Task A takes 10 seconds, and task B takes 6
seconds. There are 3 workers working on task A, and 2 workers working on task B.
Task A Task B
(a) What is the bottleneck of the process and what is the capacity rate?
Solution: 3 workers for task A is a resource pool, with capacity (60/10)*3=18 units/ min
2 workers for task B is also a resource pool, with capacity (60/6)*2=20 units/min
Therefore, the bottleneck for the whole process is resource pool for task A, and the capacity rate of the
whole process is 18 units/min.
(b) If I hire another worker who can perform Task A, what is the new capacity rate of the
whole process?
Solution: now there are 4 workers in total working for task A, the capacity for this resource pool is
(60)/10)*4=24 units/min
The new bottleneck is the resource pool for task B, and the new capacity rate is 20 units/min.
2, A Japanese restaurant is planning on offering lunch boxes during peak hours 11 am to 1

pm. There are three things on the menu for lunch box: California roll, miso soup, and
prawn tempera. There are three chefs working during lunch hours. The unit load (in
mins) for each worker producing these three items are summarized in the following table.
The manager needs to choose between two lunch boxes. Option one is “zen box” with 2
california roll, 1 miso soup, and 3 prawn tempera. Option two is “sekura box” with 1
california roll, 1 miso soup, and 6 prawn tempera. Assuming the profit for each zen box is
3 dollars, and the profit for each sekura box is 5 dollars. If this Japanese restaurant only
makes one kind of lunch box, which option would be more profitable?
California Roll Miso Soup Prawn Tempera

Chef 1 2 0 3
Chef 2 0 1 2
Chef 3 5 2 1
solution:
California Roll Miso Prawn Tempera Zen Box (2:1:3) Sekura Box(1:1:6)
Soup
Chef 1 2 0 3 2*2+1*0+3*3=13 1*2+1*0+6*3=20
Chef 2 0 1 2 7 13
Chef 3 5 2 1 15 13
The bottleneck for “zen box” is chef 3, and capacity rate is 60/15=4 per hour, profit would be 3 *4 =12
dollars.
The bootleneck for “Sekura box” is chef 1, and capacity rate is 60/20=3 per hour, profit would be 5*3=15
dollars.
3. From your daily morning trip to Tim Hortons, you know they have a healthy business,
at least financially speaking. From 9: 00 am to 11: 00 am, there are about 10
customers in the shop at any given time. Also you observe that 7 customers leave the
shop every minute on average. From 9: 00 am to 11: 00 am, how long does an
average customer spends in the shop?
Solution: I =10 customers , R=7 customers/mins, therefore T=10/7 mins
4. The local real estate agent in your community estimates that it takes 30 days on
average to sell a house; whereas this number changes some with the economy and
season, it has been fairly stable over the past 5 years. You observe from monitoring
the classified ads that over the past year the number of houses for sale has ranged
from 20 to 30 at any point in time, with an average of 25. What can we say about the
number of transactions in the past year?
Solution: From little’s law we can estimate this by viewing the real estate market as a process. We regard a
house being put up for sale as an input to the system. We assume that an unsold house remains on the
market until it is sold. Thus, when a house “completes its service” and departs from the market, we infer
that it has been sold. We have estimates of the average time in the system and the average number in the
system, namely, T=30 days and I=25 houses. From this, we can estimate that the through put rate is around
R=I/T=25/30=0.83 houses per day = 304.17 houses per year.
5. Wendy’s is a take-out only hamburger shop. The shop has one cashier, six assemblers.
A customer first makes an order and pays the money to the cashier, after which he
may wait for the order to be assembled. It takes on average 20 seconds to place an
order, 20 seconds to make the payment and 2.5 minutes (for one assembler) to
assemble a burger. Assume that each order has only one burger and each burger is
assembled by only one assembler.
(a) What is the capacity of the cashier?
For each order, the cashier spends 20 seconds to place the order, and 20 seconds on to take the payment. In
total, the cashier spends 40 seconds on each order.
The cashier’s capacity is:
1 order / 40 sec = 0.025 order /sec, or 0.025*60 = 1.5 orders /min, or 1.5*60 = 90 orders /hr
(b) What is the capacity of the six assemblers?

Each assembler spends 2.5 minutes to make a burger or fulfill an order.
The capacity of each assembler is: 1 order / 2.5 min = 0.4 order /min, or 0.4*60 = 24 orders /hr
The capacity of six assemblers is: 6*0.4 = 2.4 orders /min, or 2.4*60 = 144 orders /hr
(c) Which resource is the bottleneck?
The cashier is the bottleneck (as the cashier’s capacity is smaller).
(d) What is the capacity of Wendy’s? Briefly explain.

The capacity of Wendy’s equals to the capacity of the bottleneck --- the cashier, which is 0.025 order /sec or
1.5 orders /min or 90 orders /hr. It is because: as the slowest process, the bottleneck determines the capacity
of the entire system.
(e) Wendy’s would like to increase the capacity by hiring one more worker, which
type of worker should they hire? Briefly explain.
Wendy’s should hire an additional cashier, to improve the capacity of the bottleneck.
(f) The manager decided not to hire one more worker. The manager estimates that on
average Wendy’s receives 60 orders every hour. Which is higher, the utilization of
the cashier, or the utilization of the assemblers?
The cashier’s capacity is 90 orders /hr, so his utilization rate is 60 / 90 = 66.67%
The assemblers’ capacity is 144 orders /hr, so their utilization rate is 60 / 144 = 41.67%
As a comparison, the cashier has a higher utilization rate.
6. Consider the Fishing Fleet and Cannery exercise. Suppose that daily input to the
cannery follows the following pattern: (1) 100 tons/hr. between 8 a.m. and 12 noon,
(2) 75 tons/hr. between 1 p.m. and 3 p.m., and (3) 100 tons/hr. between 3 p.m. and 5
p.m. Note that there is no input between 12 noon and 1 p.m. The processing capacity
of the cannery is: (1) 100 tons/hr. between 8 a.m. and 11 a.m., (2) 50 tons/hr. between
11 a.m. and 2 p.m., and (3) 100 tons/hr. between 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. Assume that there
is unlimited freezer space for unprocessed fish.
(a) Draw an inventory buildup diagram that shows inventory of unprocessed fish in the
freezer starting at 8 a.m. and ending at 5 p.m.
(b) What is the average inventory level?
(c) What is the average throughput rate?
(d) What is the average time (in minutes) spent by a fish in the freezer before being
packed?
(a)
(b) average inventory = area under the curve/ length of interval=75/9
(c) average throughput rate = total # that come in/ total time=
(100*4+75*2+100*2)/9=750/9
(d) By little’s law, T=I/R=0.1 hr=6 mins
7, You are planning employees for a bank. You plan for six tellers. Tellers take 15 minutes
per customer with a standard deviation of seven minutes. Customers will arrive one every
three minutes according to an exponential distribution. Every customer who arrives
eventually gets serviced.
(a) On average, how many customers would be waiting in line?

(b) On average, how long would a customer spend in the bank?
#$ #$
(a) 𝜆 = % = 20/ℎ𝑟, 𝜇 = ,- = 4/ℎ𝑟, c=6, 𝜌 = 20/24 ≈ 0.833
9:;(=>?) CD; ECF;
𝐶5 =1, 𝐶6 = 7/15,𝐼8 = ,A9
∗ G
≈ 1.84
J
(b) From little’s law, 𝑇8 = LK = 0.092 ℎ𝑟 = 5.52 𝑚𝑖𝑛𝑠
𝑇 = 𝑇8 + 𝑇6 = 5.52 + 15 = 20.52 𝑚𝑖𝑛𝑠

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COMM204 Logistics and Operations Management

Practice Questions for Midterm

Part I. Multiple choice questions.

Input rate Capacity rate

A. 0; B. 0.25; C. 0.75; D. 1; E. None of the above

Average Patients 400

Activity Time (minutes) Resources Used

7. What is the bottleneck?

8. What is the implied utilization of Category II?

A. 33% B. 50% C. 92% D. 100%

Part II. Short answer question.

2, A Japanese restaurant is planning on offering lunch boxes during peak hours 11 am to 1

California Roll Miso Soup Prawn Tempera

(b) What is the capacity of the six assemblers?

(d) What is the capacity of Wendy’s? Briefly explain.

(d) By little’s law, T=I/R=0.1 hr=6 mins

(a) On average, how many customers would be waiting in line?

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