03-09-2024
Process Design & Analysis
Tuesday, September 3, 2024
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Process & Capacity Analysis
Context
• Decisions taken with respect to
– The amount of capacity that an operating unit has
– The manner in which the existing capacity is put to use
will lead to loss of productivity & overall reduction in the
profitability of the operating system
• Examples
– Excessive delay and waiting in service systems such as a teller counter
in a bank
– Some factories working with near 100 percent utilization of their
resources
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Process Analysis
Definition & Scope
• Process analysis utilizes some analytical
mechanism to understand the impact of
– process design on output, cost or any other
performance metric
– alternative process configurations on the chosen
performance metric
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Issues in Process Analysis
• Do I have adequate number of resources to meet the demand?
– If I need to add some extra resources where should I add?
• What is the utilization of my resources?
• If I need to increase the capacity of my system how should I
modify the process?
– Should I add some more resources?
– What will the cost of my operation?
• One can find answers to the above questions by process
analysis
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Process Flowcharting
• Process flowcharting: the use of a diagram to
present the major elements of a process
• The basic elements can include tasks or
operations, flows of materials or customers,
decision points, and storage areas or queues
• Separating a diagram into different horizontal or
vertical bands sometimes is useful
• It is an ideal methodology by which to begin
analyzing a process
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Process Flow Charting
• Design & Analysis of process begins with identification of
– activities that constitute the process
– time taken for each of the activity
– nature of flow of materials/information in the process.
• A pictorial representation of all these information could be developed
using process flow charting.
• Process flow charting employs a set of standard symbols and graphical
tools to represent all the information pertaining to the process
• The symbols used are
– A step in the Process
– Transportation (Move)
– Storage or Inventory
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Process Flowchart Example (Slot
Machine)
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Exhibit 11.1
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A Simplified Process Flow Chart
Case of Shirt Manufacturing
Inventory of
Cloth & Other WIP
materials Inventory
Stitching 1
Spreading Cutting
Stitching 2
Pressing &
Inspection Assembly
Inventory
of Shirts
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Process Analysis
Performance Metrics
• Throughput time: Throughput time (TPUT) is the elapsed time from
the first stage of the process to the last stage of the process. It is
also known as lead time.
• Cycle Time: Cycle time is the elapsed time between two successive
output from a process that is continuously operating in a given
period of time.
• Bottleneck: That stage of the process that dictates the output of a
process is the bottleneck.
• TPUT is a relevant measure for MTO systems.
• Measures such as Cycle Time and Bottleneck are relevant in the
case of MTS systems.
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Process Analysis
Toy Manufacturing (Example)
Inspect &
Prepare Pre-treat Paint Dry
Pack
8 minutes 12 minutes 20 minutes 10minutes
5 minutes
• The throughput time for the process is 55 minutes
• The spray painting is the bottleneck in the process
• Cycle time is 20 minutes. The implication of this is that when the process
operates in a continuous manner, a pallet of finished toys come out every
20 minutes.
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Process Analysis (Example)
A graphical representation with start and end times
Every batch of four toys come out exactly in an interval of 20 minutes which is the cycle
time for the process
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Process Analysis (Example)
Production Capacity of the system
Inspect &
Prepare Pre-treat Paint
Dry Pack
7.5 pallets/hr 5 pallets/hr 3 pallets/hr
12 pallets/hr
• The system can produce at the rate of 3 pallets per hour (12 toys)
• For a 8 hour operation the daily production is 24 pallets (72 toys)
• Capacity is unbalanced across different stages of the process
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Production Capacity under varying batch sizes (Example)
Existing Scenario: Batch Size of the Process = 1 pallet
Inspect &
Prepare Pre-treat Paint
Pack
(8 minutes) (12 minutes) (20 minutes) Dry
(5 minutes)
7.5 pallets/hr 5 pallets/hr 3 pallets/hr
12 pallets/hr
Scenario 1: Batch Size of the Process = 2 pallets
Prepare Inspect &
Pre-treat Paint
(4+ (2*4) = Pack
(12 minutes) (20 minutes) Dry
12 minutes) (5 minutes)
5 pallets/hr 6 pallets/hr
10 pallets/hr 12 pallets/hr
Scenario 2: Batch Size of the Process = 3 pallets
Prepare Inspect &
Pre-treat Paint
(4+ (3*4) = Pack
(12 minutes) (20 minutes) Dry
16 minutes) (5 minutes)
5 pallets/hr 9 pallets/hr
11.25 pallets/hr 12 pallets/hr
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Production Capacity under varying resource
availability (Example)
Existing Scenario: Batch Size of the Process = 1 pallet, 1 painting booth
Inspect &
Prepare Pre-treat Paint
Pack
(8 minutes) (12 minutes) (20 minutes) Dry
(5 minutes)
7.5 pallets/hr 5 pallets/hr 3 pallets/hr
12 pallets/hr
Scenario 1: Batch Size of the Process = 3 pallets, 2 pre-treatment units
Pre-treat
(12 minutes)
Prepare 5 pallets/hr Inspect &
Paint
(4+ (3*4) = Pack
(20 minutes) Dry
16 minutes) (5 minutes)
Pre-treat 9 pallets/hr
11.25 pallets/hr 12 pallets/hr
(12 minutes)
5 pallets/hr
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Process Analysis (Example)
Some important observations
• Batch sizes play a crucial role in determining
the bottleneck of a process
• As several choices are made with respect to
the resources and batch size bottleneck shifts
from one stage of the process to another. This
is referred to as wandering bottleneck.
• A process analysis exercise often leads to the
issue of improving the process
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Buffering, Blocking, and Starving
• Buffer: a storage area between stages where the
output of a stage is placed prior to being used in
a downstream stage
• Blocking: occurs when the activities in a stage
must stop because there is no place to deposit
the item
• Starving: occurs when the activities in a stage
must stop because there is no work
• Bottleneck: stage that limits the capacity of the
process
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Production Process Mapping and
Little’s Law
Total average value of inventory
•Sum of the value of raw materials, work-in-process, and finished goods
inventory
Inventory turns
•Cost of goods sold divided by the average inventory value
Days-of-supply
•Inverse of inventory turns scaled to days
Little’s law
•There is a long-term relationship among inventory, throughput, and flow
time
•Inventory = Throughput rate x Flow time
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