Machine hours

The bar chart indicates that activity B can be performed at any time within days 2, 3 and 4, without delaying the project. It also shows that the resource loading can be smoothed out if activity B is performed in either day 3 or 4, such that the maximum loading in any period does not exceed 4 units. Resource units may be, for example, man hours or machine hours . 

During each production run, the blending equipment is available for a maximum of 14 machine hours, the cooking equipment for at most 40 machine hours, and the packaging equipment for at most 15 machine hours. If each machine can be allocated to the making of either type of candy at all times that it is available for production, determine how many boxes of each kind of candy the confectioner should make to realize the maximum profit. Use a graphical technique for the two variables. 

A production facility is being used to produce three different products, JCj, x2, and x3. Each of these products requires a known number of employee-hours and machine-hours for production such that... 

The profit per unit is 5 for xu 10 for x2, and 12 for 3. Over the base production period under consideration, a total of 300 employee-hours and a total of 200 machine-hours are available. With the special restriction that all employee-hours are to be used, what mix of products will maximize profits ... 

For this problem, the linear constraints are for machine hours,... 

The source of bias error in an experiment may accompany differences among blocks, namely batches of raw materials, production machine, hours within a day, or seasons of the year. It is necessary to reduce their influence by proper design of the experiment. Blocking means running the experiment in a specially chosen subgroup that allows removal of the effect of bias errors that are confounded with the main factors. 

The base used to distribute overhead, such as direct labor dollars, direct labor hours, or machine hours. 

We report on all areas of plastics processing for every kind of application—from toys to electronics and disposable packaging to automobile and appliance parts. We provide practical problem-solving assistance as well as buyers guides to new or little-known categories of machinery, raw materials, software, or services. We also provide monthly summaries of business and market news, updates on resin prices, analysis of regulatory developments that will affect our readers, and quarterly surveys of readers capacity utilization and machine-hour pricing rates. 

Productivity—1) An overall measure of the ability to produce a good or a service. It is the actual output of production compared to the actual input of resources. Productivity is a relative measure across time or against common entities. In the production literature, attempts have been made to define total productivity where the effects of labor and capital are combined and divided into the output. One example is a ratio that is calculated by adding the standard hours of labor actually produced plus the standard machine hours actually produced in a given time period divided by the actual hours available for both labor and machines in the time period. 2) In economics, the ratio of output in terms of dollars of sales to an input such as direct labor in terms of the total wages. This is also called a partial productivity measure. 

The activity cost for a particular product is the unit cost of that activity multiplied by the number of units required, as measured by our cost driver. For our NC machine, for example, the driver is machine hours. The cost could include the categories presented as an example in Table 27.11. We assume the machine is available for 2000 work hours per year. The activity cost is 140 per machine hour. If each unit of our product took two machine hours to produce, the activity cost would be 280. 

Operating hours, not direct labor hours or dollars, were established as the primary driver of manufacturing activity costs. Depending on the company, these operating hours could be in the form of machine hours, cycle hours, cell hours, line hours, or press hours. It was agreed that operators, who had always been considered direct labor, were either one of the indirect costs required for the equipment to operate or an independent activity whose costs should be added to the operating hour related costs based on the relationship between operating hours and operator hours. 

The order-promising process employed partitions the due date time horizon into three intervals fixed product, flexible product and flexible resource. For the fixed product interval, which spans from approximately the present time to two weeks into the future, resources, in the form of manufacturing orders (MO) are fixed. An MO specifies the production quantity for each product at each assembly line in each factory. That is, a fixed production schedule is set, which takes into account both production capacity availability and critical material availability. Having a fixed schedule stabilizes production dynamics in the near term and allows for the required materials to be set up and put in place. Any order commitments made for this time interval must fit within the fixed production schedule. In the flexible product interval, two kinds of resources, capacity and material, are considered. The capacity consists of both production capacity in different factories and transportation capacity from factories to sales subsidiaries. The production capacity is given daily at factory level in terms of machine-hour and manpower availability, while the transportation capacity is specified as weekly maximum quantity from factories to sales subsidiaries. The weekly availability of individual critical materials is aggregated into finished good level availability grouped based on the bill of material (BoM). Any order commitments made for this time interval must satisfy the capacity and material availability constraints. The flexible product interval spans from approximately two weeks to two months into the future. For the flexible resource interval, which covers due dates more than two months into the future, the only constraint considered is production capacity. This interval starts beyond the resource lead times so any resource commitments can be met. 

Production capacity is managed from day to day in terms of aggregate manpower and machine hour availability. Day-to-day production smoothness is an important consideration so day-to-day capacity variations are controlled to be within a certain plus and minus percentage window. 

Help correct misleading cost-accounting tenets such as e.g. economic lot sizes and machine hour rates . 

Setup time x machine hour rate plus... 

You can see that the enterprise has no loss in profit except for the hour the machine operator takes to retrofit the machine, provided he would otherwise be occupied with other value-added work or had to put in overtime. Why do we not employ the unused machine time more frequently for retrofitting Why should this time suddenly costs as much as the machine hour rate It is thus ridiculous economically to push lot sizes up through statistical non-recurring costs like the na-chine hour rate. 

We had already determined that the lot sizes cannot be calculated on the basis of machine hour rates and statistical non-recurring costs for external orders. This would result in unjustifiably high capital tie-up. 

The problem with capacity was not so much the number of machine hours available but rather the availability of skilled people. As the workforce was gradually ageing the pool of experienced workers was diminishing - this was particularly the case with those tasks involving hand-sewing. 

Komplex GmBH has four production lines, which each operates for 8,000 hours a year. Each line makes a number of products, which are based on size and colour. Many changeovers are therefore required, each incurring set-up and maintenance costs. Traditionally the maintenance costs have been allocated on the basis of machine hours, so each production line is charged equally. This year, the maintenance budget of 1 million has been divided into four, so each line is charged with 250,000. 

In addition to arriving at conclusions about the nature of the production resources to be deployed, the costs of these resources also have to be gauged. Manufacturer and procurement costs have to be stated for new resources to be acquired. Machine-hour rates can be given for resources that are already in place. These figures are needed in a subsequent step for calculating manufacturing costs. 

This technique is capable of providing a systematic procedure for arranging the work tasks in a better fashion than is normally achieved with the "First Come first Serve" basis. By adopting index method, saving in machine hours is realized. 

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