Posted: August 9th, 2016

What is the new order of alignment?

The board department of the plant receives the boards and chips in kits from each phone assembly department and assembles them into completed boards ready for assembly into the phones. The board department (with a cost structure that is 80 percent fixed and 20 percent variable) uses a single highly automated assembly line of robotic insertion machines to precisely position each chip on the board and soldering machines to solder the chips onto the board. The board department is a common resource for the plant; all five of the phone assembly departments use the board department to assemble some or all of their boards. Since the board department have a single assembly line, it can only assemble boards for one type of phone at a time. The assembly departments have authority to seek the most competitive supplier for all their parts and services, including circuit board assembly.
The board department’s assembly schedule is determined at the beginning of each month. The five assembly departments request a time during the month when they plan the delivery of particular kits to the board department and specify the number of boards to be assembled. The manager of the board department then takes these requests and tries to satisfy the assembly departments’ requests. However, the board department manager finds that she has a peak load proble