Chairvana Inc. manufactures metal tables and chairs at its plantin Paxton, Illinois. Recently hired general manager, Bob Behar, isconcerned about the large inventories and manufacturinginefficiencies in the plant. The Paxton plant has two separateassembly lines - one for chairs and one for tables. Demand forchairs is significantly larger than tables, so Bob decides totackle the table assembly process first. Bob has recently hired asummer intern, Eileen Mayer, who he asks to study the tableassembly line and suggest ways to improve the process. Havingrecently completed a course on operations management, Eileendecides to create value stream map for the process. Over a periodof several days she collects the following information about theprocess. The Assembly Line: The assembly line operates one 8-hourshift per day, 5 days a week. The Product: Chairvana makes one typeof folding table. The table has two bent metal tubes that form thelegs, and a formed sheet-metal top. Demand for the tables is about1000 tables per week. Raw material storage: Raw material for thetable assembly line consists of the formed sheet-metal tops whichare manufactured in the Sheetmetal forming department elsewhere inthe plant, and steel tubes for the legs. The tabletops are made inbatches of 1000 and brought to the assembly area and on average theamount of table top inventory is 500. Cut tubes for the legs aredelivered by steel supplier, Steely Hollow, every week in batchesof 2000 tubes, so there are on average 1000 tubes in inventory.(Since each tube has 2 legs that is equivalent to 500 table bases.)In addition, there are hinge pins, fasteners, rubber feet andcardboard boxes that are required. These are ordered in large bulkquantities and stored at the respective assembly stations. Becausethese other parts are purchased in bulk externally, Eileen decidesthat she will make a note of them but not analyze them further. TheManufacturing Process: To maintain correct alignment duringassembly, at each stage of the manufacturing process, processing isdone on tube pairs i.e. two tubes at a time since a table requirestwo bent table legs. Hole punching: Holes for the hinge pins arepunched in the tubes. There is no set-up time for this operation.Eileen observes that the punching station can produce 60hole-punched tubes every hour. She notes that there are, onaverage, approximately 750 pairs of hole-punched tubes in awork-in-process storage area waiting for the bending operation LegBending: In this operation, the hole-punched metal tubes are bentin the shape of an U. There is no set-up required for thisoperation. The bending operation requires 4 minute per tube pairand there are two bending stations that work in parallel. Thereare, on average, 750 pairs of bent legs waiting for the nextprocessing step Hinge Assembly: A pair of bent U-tubes areassembled to form the folding base of the table by inserting hingedpins. There are two hinge assembly stations and assembly, and eachtable base requires, approximately, 2 mins for hinge assembly.There are no setups required. Assembled bases are sent to Footerassembly on roller conveyors as soon as they are assembled andthere is no intermediate inventory. Footer Assembly: Rubber footersare attached to the assembled bases and it takes 30 seconds to dooperation. There is only one station for footer assembly. Eileenobserves that, on average, there are about 800 assembled tablebases waiting for final assembly. Table Assembly: The table top ismated with the table base at the final assembly station. Theoperation requires careful adjustments and takes 6 minutes pertable. There are three assembly stations. Assembled tables aretransported immediately on a rolling conveyor to packing to avoiddamage to the table. Packaging: The assembled table is packed in acardboard box for shipping. Each table requires approximately 90seconds to be boxed and there are two packaging stations. Packagedtables are shipped to BigMart twice a week. On average, therefore,there are about 250 packaged tables waiting to be shipped. Planningand Scheduling: To understand how the different stations receivedinstructions about their daily schedules, Eileen spent a day withthe production planning department. She learnt that BigMart sends amonthly forecast of demand for tables electronically on the 25th ofeach month. In addition, a firm order for the week's requirement isfaxed to Chairvana on the previous Wednesday. Chairvana's, planningdepartment then looks at inventories and creates a work order forthe week and a paper schedule is given to each station, except theFooter assembly and Packaging station. These two stations do notneed a schedule since they immediately process whatever is sent tothem by the previous process step. The planning department alsosends a weekly order for tubes to Steely Hollow, and table-tops tothe Sheetmetal forming plant. To assist Eileen please answer thefollowing questions. For all questions consider table equivalents -a table equivalent is 2 table legs.

1) Draw a Value Stream Map for the table assembly line. Show allactivity steps, material flows, information flows andinventories.
2) Draw a timeline showing processing times and waiting times. (Youmay use any drawing package including powerpoint to create legiblechart. You can also use a package such as Visio or Lucidcharts todraw your chart. You will need to make a free account to useLucidcharts software if you choose to use it.https://www.lucidchart.com/pages/examples/value-stream-mapping) (6points)
3) Calculate the Takt time in minutes for the table assemblyprocess.(1 point)
4) For each step of the process, calculate the cycle time inminutes and the capacity utilization(2 points)
5) Calculate the total lead time and total processing time in days,hours and minutes. (1 point)