Castner Corporation is considering implementation of a JIT inventory system. The company’s industrial engineer recently conducted a study to determine the average number of days spent in each activity of the production process. The following table summarizes her findings: Production Activity Number of Days Inspecting materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Storing materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Moving materials into production . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Setting up production equipment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Cutting materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Bending materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Assembling finished products . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Painting finished products . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Instructions a. Identify Castner’s value-added production activities. b. Identify Castner’s non-value-added production activities. c. Calculate Castner’s total cycle time. d. Determine Castner’s manufacturing efficiency ratio. e. Which of the above activities might be reduced or eliminated if Castner implemented a JIT system? f. What ethical issues might be related to eliminating some of the non-value-added activities?
