You have 25 laborers for a shift. Pickers pick 100 units an hour Small item packers pack 150 units an hour Large item packers pack 25 units an hour You must pack 7500 small units during a ten hour shift. How would you staff your shift?

You gave a single answer... Right answer? sure. Right response? no. 25 Workers (breaks up nicely with 5 laborer unit ratios): A) 3:2 Pickers to Small Item Packers B) 1:4 Pickers to Large Item Packers C) 2:1:2 Pickers to Small item Packers to Pickers 5 Small item packers are required. Any combination of A, B and C where the number of small item packers >= 5. Candidate's response: 5*C (A valid answer only meeting the minimum demand for small items) Why would the candidate's answer be better than 5*A? 15 Pickers 15,000 units/shift 10 Small item Packers 15,000 units/shift Why would the candidate's answer be better than 2*A + 3*C? 12 Pickers 12,000 units/shift 7 Small item Packers 10,500 units/shift 6 Large item Packers 1,500 units/shift Why would the candidate's answer be better than 3*A + 2*B? 11 Pickers 11,000 units/shift 6 Small item Packers 9,000 units/shift 8 Large item Packers 2,000 units/shift ^--If they asked for a single solution, I'd argue this one would be better since you buffered the small item output.

Maximizing your daily output is not necessarily the way to go. You have customers waiting for orders and if you work on mostly smalls, the amount of large units in your backlog will be high. So while your numbers look good, you may not being getting orders out to customers timley. This question would make more sense if it said how many units have been ordered of small and large items so you can be sure to get through the orders in a FIFO basis.

25 laborers for shift. Picker are packing 125 units of large items. Small item are packing 175 units. Each laborer does 12 units each producing 300 units. The 300 units produce by the 25 laborers Will produce 7500.

8 picker 8x 100 =800 per hour 5 small packer 5 x150= 750 per hour.

Why wouldn't you use the following variation as it maximizes the potential for daily output 4*A +1*B result would be 13 Pickers 13,000 Units/shift 8 Small Item Packers 12,000 Units/Shift 4 Large Item Packers 1,000 Units/Shift Just a question....

I must be thick because I don't understand your answer. You picked 3 options. What is the correct answer?

The question states that 75% of items go to the small packers and 25% to the large packers, that is the reason the interviewed candidates answer is correct. simple algebra.

Ron, the goal is to balance out the shift while meeting the one demand (7500 small items packed). so you know you will need 5 small item packers. what to do with the other 20? The answer is correct. I just happen to have an area manager interview in Phoenix this thursday and now I know the question and answer