A local market research firm has just won a contract for several thousand small
ID: 443619 • Letter: A
Question
A local market research firm has just won a contract for several thousand small projects involving data gathering and statistical analysis. In the past, the firm has assigned each project to a single member of its highly trained professional staff. This person would both gather and analyze the data. Using this approach, an experienced person can complete an average of 16 such projects in an eight-hour day.
The firm’s management is thinking of assigning two people to each project in order to allow them to specialize and become more efficient. The process would require the data gatherer to fill out a matrix on the computer, check it, and transmit it to the statistical analysis program for the analyst to complete. Data can be gathered on one project while the analysis is being completed on another, but the analysis must be complete before the statistical analysis program can accept the new data. After some practice, the new process can be completed with a standard time of 15 minutes for the data gathering and 12 minutes for the analysis.
What is the production (output per hour) for each alternative? (Round your answers to 2 decimal places.)
What is the productivity (output per labor hour) for each alternative? (Round your answers to 2 decimal places.)
How long would it take to complete 1,000 projects with each alternative? (Round your answer to 1 decimal place.)
What would be the labor content (total number of labor hours) for 1,000 projects for each alternative? (Round your answer to 1 decimal place.)
A local market research firm has just won a contract for several thousand small projects involving data gathering and statistical analysis. In the past, the firm has assigned each project to a single member of its highly trained professional staff. This person would both gather and analyze the data. Using this approach, an experienced person can complete an average of 16 such projects in an eight-hour day.
The firm’s management is thinking of assigning two people to each project in order to allow them to specialize and become more efficient. The process would require the data gatherer to fill out a matrix on the computer, check it, and transmit it to the statistical analysis program for the analyst to complete. Data can be gathered on one project while the analysis is being completed on another, but the analysis must be complete before the statistical analysis program can accept the new data. After some practice, the new process can be completed with a standard time of 15 minutes for the data gathering and 12 minutes for the analysis.
What is the production (output per hour) for each alternative? (Round your answers to 2 decimal places.)
What is the productivity (output per labor hour) for each alternative? (Round your answers to 2 decimal places.)
How long would it take to complete 1,000 projects with each alternative? (Round your answer to 1 decimal place.)
What would be the labor content (total number of labor hours) for 1,000 projects for each alternative? (Round your answer to 1 decimal place.)
Explanation / Answer
Under the existing (old) system of one person for each project, output is 16 projects in eight hour shift means 2 (16/8) projects per hour.
Under the new system of two persons on each project, completion time is 27 (15+12) minutes for a project, therefore number of projects per hour is 2.22 (60/27)
Time required to complete 100 projects under first alternative is 500 hours (1000/2), assuming 8 hours working per day means 62.5 days (500/8)
Time required to complete 1000 projects under second alternative is 450 hours (1000*27/60), assuming 8 hours working per day means 56.25 days (450/8)
Labor content in terms of labor hours are 500 and 450 for alternative1 and alternative2 respectively.
Note: Total number of workers are not mentioned. If there are only two persons then alternate1 will have 32 projects as against 35.5 projects per day and total number of days for completing 1000 projects are 31.25 and 28.16 days respectively.
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