Recall from Chapter 4 that Tiger Stripe Copy Center is a small business located near a large university campus. Tiger Stripe Copy offers a range of services to walk-in customers, including passport photos, self-service copy machines, pack- aging and shipping, and the sale of course packs. Course packs are bound documents manufactured by Tiger Stripe Copy for purchase by students enrolled in particular classes at the nearby university. Each semester, Tiger Stripe Copy receives either elec- tronic files or paper originals from professors requesting course packs be prepared for sale to their students. Some- times these course packs consist of one or more original doc- uments that Tiger Stripe cannot legally copy until someone on its staff contacts the publishers of those documents for permission. This process of obtaining copyright permission generally takes about 20 min- utes for each document in question. Regardless of copyright permissions, all paper docu- ments submitted to Tiger Stripe Copy Center must first be converted into electronic files, a process that takes about 20 minutes to set up for each course pack, but then runs at a speed of 40 original pages scanned per minute. Once all files for a course pack are in elec- tronic form, Tiger Stripe can instantaneously transmit these files to a pair of high-speed copiers, each of which prints at a rate of 120 pages per minute. Tiger Stripe covers and binds all course packs in a separate process that requires about 10 minutes to set up with the correct course pack covers, but then can operate at a comfortable pace of four course packs covered and bound per minute. Once the cover and binding process is complete, the course pack is ready for sale. Speed is often crucial, because some professors request course packs on very short notice. Today is the day before the first day of classes, and five professors have just dropped off course packs to be made available for sale by tomorrow morning, the details of which are given in the Last-Minute Course Pack Orders table.

Although the Tiger Stripe production shop is caught up on all other work and every- one is available to begin production on these five orders, the regular work shift for the shop ends in 6 hours. Tiger Stripe Copy Center relies on its reputation for fast and con- venient service to university classes, so the day manager is willing to pay overtime and the staff is willing to work as long as necessary to finish these five course pack batches before leaving this evening. However, the manager would prefer to minimize this over- time expense as much as possible, and the production staff would likewise prefer to go home as early as possible.

Questions 

1. Prepare a schedule to complete these five course pack production batches. Use a Gantt chart to illustrate the work processes (obtaining copyright permissions, scan- ning, copying, and binding) associated with each order. Rounding to the nearest half hour for each block of work is sufficient for scheduling Tiger Stripe's production shop, but do not split up any single requirement for any one of the four processes. 

2. What is the makespan of your schedule? What is the average flowtime of this schedule? 

3. How much overtime is required by your schedule?

Transcribed Image Text:

Pages in Each Course AC 225 Course Pack Last-Minute Course Pack Orders Original Documents Requiring Copyright Permission be obtained before Copying Pages of Paper Originals to be Scanned Production Batch Size (Number of Course Packs) 300 3 300 180 AC 405 250 none 250 25 EC 201 100 none none 250 ES 330 50 6 50 300 WA 330 450 4 450 65