ITPEC FE Morning October 2018 Question 62
The table below shows the result of analyzing the activities of a sales representative on one (1) particular day. By installing Sales Force Automation (SFA), preparation time for customer visits can be reduced by 0.1 hours per customer visit. In order to increase the number of customer visits to six (6) per day without changing the total working hours and the hours per customer visit, how many hours must be reduced from “Other operation”?
Time analysis of the working hours for a day
Explanation
0.7 hours — six visits must fit into the same 8.0 hours, so "Other operation" absorbs whatever the extra visit costs beyond the SFA saving.
Per visit today: customer visit 5.0 ÷ 5 = 1.0 hour, preparation 1.5 ÷ 5 = 0.3 hour. SFA cuts preparation to 0.3 − 0.1 = 0.2 hour per visit.
- •Customer visits: 6 × 1.0 = 6.0 hours
- •Preparation: 6 × 0.2 = 1.2 hours
- •Left for Other operation: 8.0 − 6.0 − 1.2 = 0.8 hour
- •Reduction: 1.5 − 0.8 = 0.7 hour
Answer (c)
Why not others:
- •(a) 0.3 — the preparation time per visit before SFA, not a change in Other operation
- •(b) 0.5 — only the SFA saving on the current five visits (5 × 0.1); it ignores the 1.0 hour of visiting and 0.2 hour of preparation the sixth visit adds
- •(d) 1.0 — only the customer time of the sixth visit; it ignores its preparation and the SFA saving on all six visits
Key rule: With total hours fixed, recompute every component at the new volume and new per-unit time, and let the remaining item take up the difference.
Business Strategy Management · AI-written, may contain errors
This question comes from an official ITPEC past paper. ITPEC Practice is an independent study tool and is not affiliated with ITPEC. See the official FE past-paper collection or Report an issue.