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A local market research firm has recently secured a contract involving the execution of several thousand small projects, each requiring data gathering and statistical analysis. Historically, each project has been assigned to a single professional staff member responsible for both data collection and analysis, with an average completion rate of 16 projects per eight-hour workday. The management is now considering assigning two staff members per project, with the aim of increasing efficiency through specialization.

The proposed process involves a data gatherer filling out a matrix on the computer, checking it, and transmitting the data to the statistical analysis program. While data are being gathered for one project, the analysis for another can be conducted simultaneously, but the analysis for a project must be completed before the data input for the next project can commence. After some practice, the new process is expected to have a standard time of 20 minutes for data gathering and 15 minutes for analysis per project.

Paper For Above instruction

This paper examines the implications of transitioning from a single-person system to a two-person specialized system in managing multiple small research projects. It evaluates productivity, project completion times, and total labor hours involved, providing a detailed comparison of both approaches based on the given data.

Analysis of Production and Productivity

The existing one-person system allows each professional to complete 16 projects per 8-hour day. To determine production per hour, we divide the total number of projects completed by the total hours worked:

• Production per hour (one-person system) = 16 projects / 8 hours = 2 projects/hour.

In the two-person system, the process is divided into two steps: data gathering and analysis. The times are specified as 20 minutes (0.333 hours) for data gathering and 15 minutes (0.25 hours) for analysis. Since these tasks can be performed simultaneously across different projects, the total cycle time per project in the new system is dictated by the longer task, which is 20 minutes or 0.333 hours.

The process capacity per worker in the two-person system depends on the bottleneck. Assuming continuous workflow and effective task division, each worker is responsible for their specific task within the cycle time. The number of projects completed per cycle per worker is one, occurring every 0.333 hours for data gathering or analysis, respectively.

However, since data gathering and analysis are performed concurrently across different projects, the overall throughput per cycle can be considered as one project every 0.333 hours of the bottleneck task, which is data gathering. Therefore, the combined capacity of the two-person system per hour is calculated as:

• Projects per hour (two-person system) = 1 / 0.333 ≈ 3 projects/hour.

Assessment of Productivity

Productivity is measured as the number of projects completed per labor hour. For the one-person system:

• Total labor hours per day = 8 hours, and it completes 16 projects.
• Productivity = 16 projects / 8 hours = 2 projects/labor hour.

In the two-person system, the labor input involves two staff members working simultaneously to complete each project cycle. Each project requires 0.333 hours of data gathering and analysis combined, but the total labor hours per project are additive, as both tasks are performed by different individuals in parallel:

• Labor hours per project = 0.333 hours (gathering) + 0.25 hours (analysis) = 0.583 hours.
• Total labor hours for 1000 projects = 1000 × 0.583 ≈ 583 hours.
• Then, productivity per labor hour = Total projects / Total labor hours = 1000 / 583 ≈ 1.71 projects/labor hour.

Time to Complete 1,000 Projects

For the one-person system, the number of projects completed per day is 16, with a total work period of 8 hours. Therefore, the time to complete 1,000 projects is:

• Time = (1000 projects / 16 projects per day) × 8 hours = 62.5 days × 8 hours = 500 hours.

For the two-person system, the process capacity per hour is approximately 3 projects/hour, based on the cycle time of 0.333 hours per project. Thus, the time to complete 1,000 projects is:

• Time = 1000 / 3 ≈ 333.33 hours.

Labour Content for 1,000 Projects

The total labor hours required in each system for 1,000 projects can be summarized as follows:

• One-person system: 8 hours/day, 16 projects/day, so labor content per project is 8/16=0.5 hours. Total labor hours for 1,000 projects = 1,000 × 0.5 = 500 hours.
• Two-person system: sum of individual times per project is 0.583 hours, so total labor content for 1,000 projects is 1,000 × 0.583 = 583 hours.

Summarizing these findings, the two-person system improves project throughput, reduces total elapsed time, but involves slightly higher total labor hours due to the separate tasks performed in parallel. The choice between systems depends on priorities such as speed vs. resource utilization, with the two-person approach offering significant time savings for large volumes of projects.

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