Management Examination
H 1 Due on Feb 3 in class
1. Dello is a world-class PC company. Management believes that they understand their products and customers better than any outsourcing company; therefore Dello should provide customer service in-house. Ideally, Dello’s customer service department wants to handle all the customer phone calls. During peak hours, however, Dello receives so many customer calls that they ask an outsourcing company, Telemate, to help handle incoming calls. Dello’s switchboard system is programmed in the following way; A customer calls Dello at its 1-800 number. If there are 14 or less callers in the system waiting to speak with one of the customer service representatives, then the call stays within Dello’s system and the customer inquiry will be answered by a Dello customer service representative. If, on the other hand, there are 15 or more calls waiting within Dello’s system, then the incoming call is forwarded to the outsourcer Telemate, and the call will be answered by a Telemate agent.
Draw the process flowchart for Dello’s customer service call handling process.
2. Consider a process that has 3 stations, ordered in sequence: A, B and C. At each station, two consecutive tasks are performed one after the other. The time (in seconds per unit) it takes for a single person to perform each task is given in the table below (e.g., task A2 takes 10 seconds per unit):
Station
# of
Workers
Task A1
Task
A2
Task
B1
Task
B2
Task
C1
Task C2
A
1
20
10
-
-
-
-
B
2
-
-
40
40
-
-
C
1
-
-
-
-
15
5
The table also gives the number of workers at each station. What is the capacity of this process (in units per minute)?
3. Consider the following four step process:
The following data are available for the four steps:
Suppose the steps in activity D are made easier, so the activity time per unit in step D is reduced by 50% (to 0.25 min per unit). If the assignment of workers to steps remains the same, by how much does the capacity of the entire process
1. Dello is a world-class PC company. Management believes that they understand their products and customers better than any outsourcing company; therefore Dello should provide customer service in-house. Ideally, Dello’s customer service department wants to handle all the customer phone calls. During peak hours, however, Dello receives so many customer calls that they ask an outsourcing company, Telemate, to help handle incoming calls. Dello’s switchboard system is programmed in the following way; A customer calls Dello at its 1-800 number. If there are 14 or less callers in the system waiting to speak with one of the customer service representatives, then the call stays within Dello’s system and the customer inquiry will be answered by a Dello customer service representative. If, on the other hand, there are 15 or more calls waiting within Dello’s system, then the incoming call is forwarded to the outsourcer Telemate, and the call will be answered by a Telemate agent.
Draw the process flowchart for Dello’s customer service call handling process.
2. Consider a process that has 3 stations, ordered in sequence: A, B and C. At each station, two consecutive tasks are performed one after the other. The time (in seconds per unit) it takes for a single person to perform each task is given in the table below (e.g., task A2 takes 10 seconds per unit):
Station
# of
Workers
Task A1
Task
A2
Task
B1
Task
B2
Task
C1
Task C2
A
1
20
10
-
-
-
-
B
2
-
-
40
40
-
-
C
1
-
-
-
-
15
5
The table also gives the number of workers at each station. What is the capacity of this process (in units per minute)?
3. Consider the following four step process:
The following data are available for the four steps:
Suppose the steps in activity D are made easier, so the activity time per unit in step D is reduced by 50% (to 0.25 min per unit). If the assignment of workers to steps remains the same, by how much does the capacity of the entire process