BA 645 Assignment 1

Problem 1: (5 A company is planning on expanding and building a new plant in one of three countries in Eastern Europe. The general manager, Patricia Donegal, has decided to base her decision on six critical success factors: technology availability and support, availability and quality of public education, legal and regulatory aspects, social and cultural aspects, economic factors, and political stability. Using a rating system of 1 (least desirable) to 5 (most desirable) she has arrived at the following ratings. 

Assume that Patricia decides to use the following weights for the critical success factors:

In which country should the plant be built?  

Problem 5 The following table gives the map coordinates and the shipping loads for a set of cities that we wish to connect though a central “hub.” Near what map coordinates should the hub be located?

Problem : (20 Bay Community Hospital has decided to introduce a new diagnostic procedure in the clinic. This procedure required the acquisition, installation, and introduction of a new medical instrument. Dr. Ed Windsor was assigned the responsibility for assuring that the introduction is performed as quickly and as smoothly as possible.

Dr. Windsor created a list of activities that would have to be completed before the new service could begin. The activities are listed in the table below.

1. (10 points) Using Critical Path Method, find earliest start time, earliest finish time, latest start time, and latest finish time for each of the activities. What is the earliest completion time for this project? Identify critical activities and paths. What is the maximum delay time for each activity such that it will not increase the project completion time? 
2. (5 points) After examining his initial list of activities, Dr. Windsor realizes that while preliminary parts of operator’s training can take place before the new equipment arrives, the last three weeks of training must take place only after the equipment arrives. Re-do the project plan, completion time estimate, and critical activity identification using CPM and taking this new information into account.
3. (5 points) Now suppose activities A and B both have to be done using same resources. This just means that activities A and B cannot be completed at the same time anymore and should be completed sequentially. Re-do the project plan, completion time estimate, and critical activity identification using CPM and taking this new information into account. (Note: the information in part b is still to be considered)

Problem 25 points) Development of a new deluxe version of a particular software product is being considered by Ravi Behara’s software house. The indirect cost is $500 per week. The activities necessary for the completion of this project are listed in the following table

1. (5 points) What is the project completion time and the total cost required for completing this project on normal time?
2. (5 points) If you wish to reduce the time required completing this project by 1 week, which activity should be crashed, and how much will this change the total cost?
3. (10 points) If you wish to reduce the total cost to the minimum level, which activities should be crashed, and how much will this make the total cost?
4. (5 points) What is the earliest time that the project can be completed by crashing the activities? How much will this make the total cost?

Problem (30 points) The Hughes Supply Company uses an inventory management method to determine the monthly demands for various products. The demand values for the last 12 months of each product have been recorded and are available for future forecasting. The demand values for the 12 months of 2020 for one electrical fixture are presented in Table below.

2021. Using a naive model, forecast the demand for January 2021.
2022. Use a three-month moving average to forecast the demand for January 2021.
2023. Find the forecast of the demand for January 2021, using a four-month weighted moving average.
2024. Use exponential smoothing with a smoothing constant of 0.7 and an initial value 241 to forecast the demand for January 2021.
2025. Evaluate the above forecasting methods using the MAPE.
2026. Find the best value for smoothing constant for the exponential smoothing and the MAPE associated with it.
2027. Given the parts a-f what is your best forecast for January 2021.

Problem 10 points) Auto pistons at Wemming Chung’s plant in Shanghai are produced in a forging process, and the diameter is a critical factor that must be controlled. From sample sizes of 9 pistons produced each day, the mean and the range of this diameter have been as follows: 

1. What are the UCL _x and LCL _x , using 3s? Plot the data.
2. What are the UCLR and LCLR, using 3s? Plot the data.
3. Is the Process in Control?

Problem 7: (5 points) The school board is trying to evaluate a new math program introduced to second- graders in six elementary schools across the county this year. A sample of the student scores on standardized math tests in each elementary school yielded the following data: 

1. Construct a c- chart for test errors and set the control limits to contain

99.73% of the random variation in test scores. 

1. What does the chart tell you?