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9.5 The Calm Seas Cruise Ship Line wants to analyze its passenger laundry operation. A tunical cruise ship of the line is 850 ft in length and has 600 passenger cabins located on fodecks. For every occupied cabin during a cruise, the cabin stewards retrieve the bed line(sheets and pillowcases) and towels (washcloths, hand towels, and bath towels) when theymake up the rooms each day. Each steward is responsible for 15 cabins. The steward senarates the bed linens from the towels, putting them into two separate laundry bags. Becauseof the large size of each bag, the two bags are separately hand-carried to the laundrydepartment, which is located on one of the lower decks. Depending on which deck and decksection a steward serves, the travel distance ranges from several hundred feet to morethan a thousand feet, plus several flights of stairs. In the laundry department, the bags areemptied, making sure that the bed linens are not mixed with the towels during launder-ing. The two categories of laundry are washed separately in large washing machines, usinga different wash cycle for each category. After washing, the linens and towels are dried intumble dryers located on the same deck about 100 ft away, and then they are folded andstacked. They are then moved in stacks to the ironing department, which is located on thedeck immediately above the laundry department, where they are separated and individ-ually ironed in large flat ironers. After ironing, they are folded and stacked. From the iron-ing department they are transported to either of two main storerooms, located fore andaft on one of the main passenger decks for access on the following day by the cabin stew-ards in making up the rooms. (a) Construct a flow process chart of the laundry operation,using the bed linens and towels as the subject material in the analysis. Estimate distancesmoved but ignore operation times. (b) Based on your flow process chart, what are solmechanges in the laundry operation that you would recommend? (c) Develop a revised pcedure for the laundry operation, documenting your revision in the form of a new nowprocess chart.

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