Quick Stop Pharmacy is a small family-owned drug compounding business in Portland Oregon that is trying to perfect its customer service operations. John Suleiman, the owner wants to maximize the productivity of his staff as well as serve customers well. One area of concern is the drive- thru operation during the 7:30-8:30 morning rush hour. The process of fulfilling an order is as follows:

a. If all the steps are handled by one employee, how many patients could be served per hour?
b. If James wants to process 30 patients per hour, how many employees will he need?
c. How many stations are required using the longest work element decision rule?
d. Using the solution developed in part c, which station is the bottleneck and how large is its capacity cushion?

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Immediate Work Element Time (Sec.) Predecessor(s) (A Greet patient and take prescription 40 (B Check patient information on system 45 (C) Gather compounding materials (D) Perform compounding (E) Package and label (F) Instruct patient on use (G) Collect payment 65 40 25