Understanding Process Design and Flow

XYZ industries has a flow line of 5 machines as shown in the following diagram:

Machine
2a
30/hr
Machine
1
40/hr

Machine
2b
30/hr

Machine
3
50/hr

Machine
4
60/hr

Machines 2a and 2b are identical. Parts from machine 1 go to either machine 2a

or machine 2b. The company currently works on 2 shifts (i.e. 16 hours per day for
5 days per week).

1.

What is the output rate of the line?

2.

What is the cycle time of the line?

3.

Which machine is the bottleneck?

4.

At what maximum rate should parts be introduced to the line in order to

prevent build up of queues?

5.

If parts were fed to the line at 60 units per hour, what would happen?

6.

If the company wants to increase the output rate of the line by 50% what
should it do?