A company is trying to balance production between 3 workstations on an assembly line. Currently there are 5 tasks that need to be performed

These tasks, ABCDE, have required times of 2 minutes, 4 minutes, 1 minutes, 3 minutes, and 10 minutes, respectively. The assembly line needs to produce 40 units per day to meet demand and can work for up to 8 hours each day.
(a) What is the required cycle time?
(b) What is the theoretical minimum # of workstations?
(c) Assign the tasks according to the shortest task time heuristic.

(a) Required cycle time = Production time available/Units required = 8 hours * 60 minutes / 40 units = 12 minutes
(b) Minimum # of workstations = Sum of task times/Cycle time
= (2 + 4 + 1 + 3 + 10)/12 = 1.667 stations = 2 stations
(c) Workstation A would be assigned Task C for a total of 1 minute, Task A for a total of 3 minutes, Task D for a total of 6 minutes, Task B for a total of 10 minutes. Task E cannot be assigned because 10 + 10 > 12 minutes. Therefore Task E would be assigned to station B for a total of 10 minutes. Station C would have no assignment.
The assignment method of Part (c) creates the optimum assignment (2 workstations = theoretical minimum), so the third workstation is not needed.