MULTIMEDIA UNIVERSITY

OF Kenya
Njoro, Kenya
UNIVERSITY EXAMINATIONS: FIRST YEAR SECOND SEMESTER, NOVEMBER 2017
THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF SCIENCE IN MECHANICAL ENGINEERING
CAT II: MSc. Factory Design and Layout

INSTRUCTIONS TO CANDIDATES: Answer ALL questions.

Q1. (a) State briefly the plant layout principles

(b) Write a brief notes on:
i) Product layout,
ii) Process Layout,
iii) Fixed layout, and
iv) Cellular layout
In each case, give an example.
Q2. (a) Explain (i) Material handling in product layout and (ii) material handling in process layout.
(b) Describe five main steps in the purchasing cycle of a manufacturing plant.
(c) Briefly explain what you understand by JIT. What are its characteristics?
Q3. (a) What are the primary reasons for holding inventory?
(b) State any six selective inventory control techniques and discuss any three of them.
(c) Write short notes on the following:
(i) Materials handling
(ii) Simulation
(iii) Transportation, and
(iv) Linear Programming and how it can be used in Factory design and layout
Q4. (a) Explain the working principle of conveying equipment
(b) Explain the different factors that influence plant location.
Q5. (a) Discuss in detail the various elements of a queuing system.
(b) Customers arrive at a machining workshop at an average rate of 16 per hour on a certain day of the week. The
arrival distribution can be described by a Poisson distribution with a mean of 16. Each machinist can serve a customer
in an average of three minutes; this time can be described by an exponential distribution with a mean of 3 minutes.
(i) What are the arrival and service rates?
(ii) Compute the average number of customers being served at any time.
(iii) Suppose it has been determined that the average number of customers waiting in line is 3.2, compute the average
number of customers in the system (i.e., waiting in line or being served), the average time customers wait in line, and
the average time in the system.
(iv) Determine the system utilization for M = 1, 2, and 3 servers.
Q6. The factory wishes to establish a crew of technicians that will be responsible for repairing the factory's machines,
which are identical. The crew is stationed at a single location. Machine breakdowns occur randomly (Poisson process)
at a mean rate of one per hour. The time required to fix a machine has a negative exponential distribution (regardless
of crew size). The expected repair time required by a one-worker crew would be 2 hours.
The cost per hour for each member of a repair crew is KES 1,200/=. The cost that is attributable to not having a
machine in use (i.e., a machine waiting for repair) is estimated to be KES 4,800/= per hour. (Both technicians and
machines are on 8-hour days.)
Assume that the mean service rate of the repair crew is proportional to its size:
(a) What should the crew size be in order to minimize the expected total cost of this operation per hour?
(b) Repeat this question but with the mean service rate proportional to the square root of the crew size.