A medicine has an extremely short shelf life. The factory owner is unhappy with the slow production rate and asks the production manager about it. The production manager says she is running the factory such that the production rate is equal to 70% of the maximum production rate possible at the bottleneck. The owner insists on 'speeding up' the factory by increasing the production rate to 95% of the bottleneck's maximum. 

1. Explain what happens to WIP as they go from 70% to 95% of the theoretical maximum production rate. 

2. Explain what happens to the cycle time as they go from 70% to 95% of the theoretical maximum production rate. 

3. Given the short shelf life, which measure of factory performance: production rate, cycle time, WIP, is most important to monitor?