An upset forging plant will be built to produce 2,000,000 parts per year. The plant will operate for three 8-hour shifts per day, five days per week, 48 weeks per year. It is estimated that the average batch size will be 2000 parts, the average setup time between batches will be 3 hours, and the average time to produce a part will be 20 seconds. For both production and setup, the availability for each forging machine will be 95%.
(a) Determine how many forged parts can be produced in 1 month, if there are 8 hours worked per day and an average of 21 days per month at one shift per day.
(b) What is the labor productivity ratio of the forge shop, expressed as parts per worker-hour?