Describe the effect of the number of products (with constant total demand) on the system. Answer all the questions at the end of the case.
Appendix: Even though the setting of the case is fairly clear, just in case, below is a more-detailed description of how Sta-Fluff operates:
Production line (tower) can only produce one product at a time, but does it very fast. Five packaging lines (A to E) work in parallel packaging the corresponding A to E products. Thus, let’s say tower starts producing product A at a much faster rate than packaging line A can package it and thus, we put all of the product A tower produces to a storage hopper (buffer) dedicated to line A (while packaging line A is operating). After producing a significant amount of A, with some inventory of A in the buffer, the tower switches to producing product B. Again we produce product B at a rate much faster than packaging line B can process and put all of the product into the buffer dedicated to line B, while packaging line withdraws product from this buffer at a lower rate. (In the meantime, packaging line A continues to withdraw from buffer A and package product A.)
In an ideal case, the tower switches in a cyclic manner from product A to B, to C, to D, and to E, and again to A, B, C, D, and E, etc. In the meantime all packaging lines are busy working on their own products (withdrawing their product from the buffer and packaging it).
[Currently the cycle for the tower would be 3 hour setup for A, 6 hours production of A, 3-hour setup for B, 6 hours production of B, …, 6 hours production of E. And right away we would start another cycle with 3-hour setup for A.]