Mr K’s is a very popular hair salon. It offers high-quality hair-styling and phy

Question

Mr K’s is a very popular hair salon. It offers high-quality hair-styling and physical relaxation services at a reasonable price so it always has unlimited demand. The service process includes five activities that are conducted in the sequence described below (the time required for each activity is shown in parentheses):

Activity 1: Welcome a guest and offer homemade herb tea (10 minutes)

Activity 2: Wash and condition hair (10 minutes)

Activity 3: Neck, shoulder and back stress release massage (10 minutes)

Activity 4: Design the hairstyle and do the hair (25 minutes)

Activity 5: Sort out the guest’s bill (5 minutes)

Each activity has one employee dedicated to it. For the following questions, assume unlimited demand (there is always a guest available). Also assume that the employee at Activity 1 only admits new guests at the rate of the bottleneck.

(a) Which resource is the bottleneck?

(b) What is the capacity of the process (expressed as guest per hour)?

(c) What is the utilization of the employee at activity 3?

(d) How long would it take to serve five guests, starting with an empty system?

Explanation / Answer

1. Output of each stage of activity

Activity 1 = 60/10 = 6 per hour

Activity 2 = 60/10 =6 per hour

Activity 3 =60/10 = 6 per hour

Activity 4 = 60/25 = 2.4 per hour

Activity 5 = 60/5 =12 per hour

(a) Activity 4 is the bottleneck as it has an outpur of only 2.4 customer per hour.

(b) Process capacity is equal to the capacity of bottlebneck i.e. 2.4 customers per hour.

(c) Utilisation of employee at activity 4 is

Work done per hour / Capability per hour = 2.4 customers / 6 customers = 0.4

(d) As the customers are being given entry at the rate of bottleneck only, the fifth customer will be entered at t=100 min. if the first customer was given entry at t=0.

the processing time for guest 5 = 60 min.

Total time to serve 5 guests = 100+60 =160min.

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