A production line consists of four successive workstations (A, B, C, and D): It takes 4 minutes to process a job in station A, 4 minutes in station B,4 minutes in station C, and 16 minutes in station D. The stations require different resources and work is pushed based on the firstcome-first-served principle throughout the production line. All workstations are initially empty. There are 100 jobs to complete. The company considers four different strategies to reduce the WIP inventory:
(a) The current production line without any modification.
(b) Adding a new station that will run parallel to station D. Upon arrival of a job any idle station, or the station that becomes idle first, serves the job. It takes 16 minutes to process a job in the new station.
(c) Adding three new stations (instead of one) that will run parallel to station D. Upon arrival of a job any idle station, or the station that becomes idle first, serves the job. It takes 16 minutes to process a job in each new station.
(d) Replacing the current server in station D with a faster one that processes a job in 4 minutes.