In a simplified version of the industrial soy milk productio

In a simplified version of the industrial soy milk production, the dried soy beans get soaked with water in a large vat for 5 hours, undergo wet grinding where more water is added, and the resulting mixture is boiled in a tank for 0.5 hours. Finally, the boiled mixture is bottled. You can ignore the water part and consider the same pound of beans entering the system, going through all the four servers, and leaving the system. The vat can contain 750 lb of beans, the mill can work at a rate of 200lb/hr, the tank can contain 50lb, and the bottling machine can process 250lb per hour. Each server has a buffer immediately upstream of it, and all the buffers have a capacity of 10,000lb. The vat and the tank work always at a full load; e.g., when the inventory level of the first buffer reaches 750lb, all the beans are transfered into the vat, mixed with water, and the soaking process begins. The system works at capacity and at a stable transient state. Depending on where the bottleneck is, the mill and the bottling machine may work below capacity, and so may the vat and the tank by incurring idle times.

Now, let us add a second boiling tank of same capacity to the system. Please find (viii) the new system capacity, (ix) the utilization of each tank, and (x) the inventory diagram and the average inventory of the two tanks and that of the common buffer upstream of them, assuming both tanks need to be completely filled in order to operate.

Solution

Viii) new system capacity is doubled, because adding second boiling tank of same capacity to the system

New system capcity:

so, 750 lb of beans + 750 lb of beans =1,500 lb vat can contain

mill can work at a rate of 200 lb/hr =    200+ 200 =400 lb/hr

The tank can contain 50lb + 50 lb = 100 lb can contain

Bottling machine can process 250lb + 250lb =500 lb

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