1. How long will it take you to fill a rush order? It takes twenty-seven minutes to fill a rush order of one dozen cookies because it takes 1 minute to receive, read, print, and send reply to the customer order; 6 minutes to place all the ingredients of the order into a mixing bowl, up to three dozen cookies worth, and mix; 2 minutes to spoon the cookie dough onto a tray, a dozen per tray; 10 minutes to put the cookie into the one tray capacity oven, set the timer, and bake the cookies; 5 minutes to take the cookies out of the oven and let them cool; 2 minutes per dozen to take the cookies off the tray and carefully pack them into a box; and 1 minute to accept payment for the order. The overall process takes 19 minutes per dozen and a constant 8 minutes for every order under four dozen cookies because of each order under four dozen will always take 2 minutes to receive and accept payment for the order and 6 minutes to mix ingredients up three dozen cookies worth. So for a rush order of two dozen it will take 46 minutes and a rush order of three dozen will take 65 minutes.

2. How many orders can you fill in a night, assuming you are open four hours each night?

Assuming all orders are only one dozen, we could fill 24 orders in a night because the bottleneck resource of the process, which determines the capacity of the whole process, is the baking in the oven. Baking takes 10 minutes giving it the lowest capacity of all the steps and the capacity of the whole process, 6 dozen cookies per hour thus 24 dozen cookies each four-hour night. The capacity for the other steps are 60 dozen per hour to receive, read, print, and send reply to the customer order; 10 dozen per hour to place all the ingredients of the order into a mixing bowl; 30 dozen per hour to spoon the cookie dough onto a tray; 12 dozen per hour to take the cookies out of the oven and let them cool; 30 dozen per hour to take the cookies off the tray and carefully pack them into a box; and 60 dozen per hour to accept payment.

3. How much of your own and your roommate’s valuable time will it take to fill each order?

The first step in the process is for the roommate to take the cookie order. That process takes 1 minute. Adding and mixing the ingredients takes you 6 minutes every time, as long as the amount of dough is for three dozen cookies or less. The next step is for you to spoon the cookies onto the tray, which can only hold one dozen at a time. It takes 2 minutes for one dozen cookies to be spooned onto the tray. We assume that the tray of cookies is placed in the oven as soon as they are spooned onto the tray, and not after all the dough has been spooned out of the mixer. The roommate places the cookies into the oven, which takes up negligible time, and then bakes for 10 minutes. The cookies are removed and allowed to cool for 5 minutes. Removing the cookies from the tray and placing them in the box takes the roommate 2 minutes per dozen. Accepting the payment takes the roommate one minute per order. Since the tray can only hold one dozen cookies, and the oven can only hold one tray, each order is made a dozen at a time. The overall process takes 19 minutes per dozen, and a constant 8 minutes no matter the size of the order, as long as it is under three dozen total since the mixer can only hold enough ingredients for three dozen cookies at once. The roommate uses 19 minutes of her time for one dozen cookies, 36 minutes for two dozen and 53 minutes for three dozen. You use 8 minutes per dozen, 10 minutes for two dozen and 12 minutes for three dozen. 4. Because your baking trays can hold exactly one dozen cookies, you will produce and sell cookies by the dozen. Should you give any discount for people who order two dozen cookies, three dozen cookies, or more? If so, how much? Yes, you should give people discounts that order more than one dozen at a time. Since there is a constant amount of time regardless of order size during the process, a few minutes are saved for every extra dozen per order. Time is saved during the ordering process, which takes one minute regardless of size, adding and mixing ingredients takes 6 minutes as long as the order is less than 4 dozen, and accepting payment takes one minute regardless of size. For every extra dozen made per order (under 4 dozen), the process saves 8 minutes. Creating two separate orders of one dozen each would take 54 minutes, but one 2 dozen order is only 46 minutes, which is a 15% time difference. And for three dozen, you save about 20% of your time. So we could discount the prices at about the same percent as the time saving, but since we like money, we’ll discount a two dozen order by 10% and a three dozen order by 15%. 5. How many electric mixers and baking trays will you need?

Only one electric mixer will be necessary for efficient production, since there is a 10 minute wait between baking cycles. As soon as one dozen cookies are spooned out of the tray, cleaning up and mixing together the next order can be done within 10 minutes. 3 baking trays should be the amount used. The mixer can mix 3 dozen at a time, so there should be at least 3 trays ready to spoon the cookies onto. After removing the trays from the oven, there is still 7 minutes needed to cool the cookies and remove them from the trays to a box, which could slow production time if there is no tray ready for the next dozen of cookies from the electric mixer.

Receive, read, print, and reply to customer order
Receive, read, print, and reply to customer order

(Ryan, computer)

Add all ingredients to mixing bowl
Add all ingredients to mixing bowl

Mix the bowl
Mix the bowl

(Rohith, electric mixer) (Rohith, mixing bowl)

Spoon cookie dough onto a tray
Spoon cookie dough onto a tray

(Rohith, spoon and tray) Take the tray out the oven and let the cookies cool
Take the tray out the oven and let the cookies cool
Place the tray into the oven, set the timer, and cook
Place the tray into the oven, set the timer, and cook

(Ryan) (Ryan, oven) Carefully place cookies into a box
Carefully place cookies into a box

(Ryan, boxes)
Accept payment
Accept payment

(Ryan, cash register)