A roller conveyor moves tote pans in one direction at 150 ft/min between a load station and an unload station, a distance of 200 ft. With one worker, the time to load parts into a tote pan at the load station is 3 sec per part. Each tote pan holds 8 parts. In addition, it takes 9 sec to load a tote pan onto the conveyor. Determine
(a) Spacing between tote pan centers flowing in the conveyor system and
(b) Flow rate of parts on the conveyor system.
(c) Consider the effect of the unit load principle. Suppose the tote pans were smaller and could hold only one part rather than 8. Determine the flow rate in this case if it takes 7 sec to load a tote pan onto the conveyor (instead of 9 sec for the larger tote pan), and it takes the same 3 sec to load the part into the tote pan.