A company is designing an assembly line for a new line of lamps. It has identified 8 tasks and arranged them as in the following figure. The number in each circle represents the time to complete the task in minutes. Demand for the product is expected to be 20,000 units a year. The new assembly line is scheduled to work 8 hour days, 5 day weeks and 50 weeks per year.

After completing one year of operation, the demand has grown to 30,000 units per year. The company is considering two expansion options: it can re-balance the existing line, or obtain a second line. If a second line is obtained, each line would have to be re-balanced since the demand for each individual line would be different.

(1) For the single-line option, balance the existing line to meet a demand of 30,000 units.

(2) For the two-line option, balance the lines to meet an individual demand of 15,000 units. (You only have to show 1 line.)

(3) The current labour agreement makes overtime very expensive for the company, and so it wants to avoid it if possible. Given this consideration, which option (single-line or two lines) would you recommend should be implemented?

w I 3 - w I 3