DataSpan, Inc., automated its plant at the start of the current year and installed a flexible manufacturing system. The company is also evaluating its suppliers and moving toward Lean Production. Many adjustment problems have been encountered, including problems relating to performance measurement. After much study, the company has decided to use the performance measures below, and it has gathered data relating to these measures for the first four months of operations. Month
1 2 3 4
Throughput time (days) ? ? ? ?
Delivery cycle time (days) ? ? ? ?
Manufacturing cycle efficiency (MCE) ? ? ? ?
Percentage of on-time deliveries 92% 87% 84% 81%
Total sales (units) 2060 1972 1871 1800

Management has asked for your help in computing throughput time, delivery cycle time, and MCE. The following average times have been logged over the last four months:

Average per Month (in days)
1 2 3 4
Move time per unit 0.8 0.4 0.5 0.5
Process time per unit 3.4 3.2 3.0 2.8
Wait time per order before start of production 23.0 25.2 30.0 32.3
Queue time per unit 4.3 5.1 6.0 7.0
Inspection time per unit 0.6 0.9 0.9 0.6

Required:

a. Compute the throughput time for each month.
b. Compute the delivery cycle time for each month.
c. Compute the manufacturing cycle efficiency (MCE) for each month.
d. Evaluate the companyâs performance over the last four months.