Question

You arrive at the airport and wonder to what extent the security checkpoint is a lean operation. Among other things, you observe that it takes about 30 seconds to check an ID, scan a passenger for weapons, and X-ray their luggage. However, the average cus- tomer spends about 20 minutes in the process. This observation is an example of which of the following?

a. Waste of capacity
b. Waste of a flow unit’s time
c. Waste of materials
d. This observation is unrelated to lean.

Answer 1

Answer:

b. Waste of a flow unit’s time

Explanation:

It is the waste of time from the point of view of a flow unit, this accounts for the flow of time in which the flow unit is longer than what the customer wants or desires. For example the wasting of time on the line in the airport.

Answer 2

Answer: b. Waste of a flow unit’s time

Explanation: Lean operations are a means of running an organization or firm by prioritizing on providing greater customer satisfaction while using as little resources as possible. The aim is to create value for customers and eliminating waste. The observation made by the customer is an example of waste of flow unit time as there's significant waste of time for units passing through the airport per unit time. A flow unit is the basic unit of analysis in any given scenario such as customer, phone call etc. The flow units are the customers, money, produced goods/services going through the business process per unit time.