Week 6 — One Slow Step: A Print Center Finds Its Limit

Assignment 6 of the term — find the bottleneck in a process, compute its capacity before and after adding equipment, and explain the idea to someone new to business.

This adaptive assignment uses a coaching dialogue to help you turn a first attempt into a clear, checkable analysis. You remain the author. The coach asks questions, checks the work you show, and waits for you to revise before it produces the required report. This week's lecture tutorial, quiz, discussion, and Business Case Workshop practise the same ideas from other angles; this assignment is where you put the bottleneck, capacity, quality, and information security together on one small case.

The task

The case is illustrative, built for this course and not real data. A neighborhood copy-and-print center makes large posters and banners for local groups. Every job passes through three steps in order, and each step handles one job at a time. Like the coffee cart in this week's chapter, the case has no named people.

The print center's steps, line by line:

• Job intake at the counter: 5 minutes per job.
• Printing on the center's one large-format printer: 15 minutes per job.
• Trimming and packing: 3 minutes per job.

Work these two problems, showing every step of the arithmetic:

1. What is the print center's capacity, in jobs an hour, with its one printer?
2. The center adds a second, identical printer and a second operator, and the two printers share the printing work evenly. What is the print center's capacity, in jobs an hour, after the change?

Beside each answer, add a brief interpretation:

• Problem 1: name the bottleneck and explain, using the terms bottleneck and capacity, why a faster intake counter would not let the center finish more jobs; then name at least two stakeholders who feel the limit and say how.
• Problem 2: say which step is the bottleneck after the change and why; then name one quality approach from this week (total quality management, the Six Sigma steps, or lean production) that the center could use against jobs that have to be reprinted because the size was wrong, and one basic protection for the center's online ordering account, each tied to the case.

Explain it to a non-expert

A relative who runs a lunch truck asks you, "If I hire a faster cashier, will I serve more people?" Write a 3–5 sentence message that explains what a bottleneck is and what capacity means, answers the question in everyday words, and names one limit, including that the print-center case is illustrative and that capacity is a ceiling that assumes steady work, not a promise. Explain any technical term in everyday words. More than one good answer is possible.

For a different, ungraded example, imagine a library desk where laptops are checked out. Model answer: "Every process has one step that takes the longest, and that slowest step, called the bottleneck, decides how many people can get through in an hour. At the library desk, scanning a card is quick, but setting up each laptop takes the most time, so a faster card scanner would not help the line. The most the desk can handle in an hour is its capacity, and it only grows if the slowest step gets faster or gets help. Real days have rushes and slow moments, so capacity is a ceiling, not a guarantee."

Use that pattern for the lunch truck, with your own wording and evidence.

Part 1 — Student instructions

1. Draft both answers, both interpretations, and your message to the relative before opening a chatbot.
2. Open any course-approved chatbot. Copy the entire Coach Prompt box, including its first and last marker lines, and paste it as one message. The coach will ask for your draft and then work one question at a time.
3. Answer in your own words. Show each step of the arithmetic when asked. Use the coach's feedback to revise at least one number or explanation, even if your first attempt was correct.
4. Continue until the prompt's exit condition is met.
5. Save the chat's share link and copy the final report exactly as the coach gives it.

The chatbot is a coach, not a ghostwriter. It must draw out your reasoning rather than write the work for you.

Coach Prompt

COPY EVERYTHING BELOW THIS LINE
ROLE: You are a careful learning coach for an introduction-to-business course. Draw out and challenge MY thinking about a process's bottleneck and capacity, building quality into a process, and protecting a small business's information. Do not write my assignment for me, do not invent work I did not show, never invent a statistic, a study, a quotation, a price, or a fact about a real company, and never recommend a specific security product.

ASSIGNMENT: Work through these two problems in order, one at a time. Do not invent, replace, or reorder a problem. The case: an illustrative neighborhood copy-and-print center, built for my course and not real data. In this course, a bottleneck is the slowest step in a process, the one that limits how much the whole process can produce; capacity is the most output a process can produce in a given time, set by its slowest step; total quality management, the Six Sigma steps (define, measure, analyze, improve, control), and lean production are ways to build quality into a process instead of inspecting at the end; and the basic protections for a small business's information are recognizing and reporting phishing, strong passwords with a password manager, multifactor authentication, prompt software updates, and regular backups.
PROBLEM P1: In the illustrative copy-and-print center, every job passes through job intake (5 minutes per job), printing on the one large-format printer (15 minutes per job), and trimming and packing (3 minutes per job), one job at a time at each step. What is the center's capacity, in jobs an hour, with its one printer?
PROBLEM P2: In the illustrative copy-and-print center, job intake takes 5 minutes per job, printing takes 15 minutes per job on one large-format printer, and trimming and packing takes 3 minutes per job. The center adds a second, identical printer and a second operator, and the two printers share the printing work evenly. What is the center's capacity, in jobs an hour, after the change?
After the two answers, I must interpret each one: for P1, name the bottleneck, explain with the terms bottleneck and capacity why a faster intake counter would not raise the number of jobs finished, and name at least two stakeholders who feel the limit; for P2, say which step is the bottleneck after the change and why, then name one quality approach the center could use against jobs reprinted at the wrong size and one basic protection for its online ordering account, each tied to the case. I must then write a 3-5 sentence message to a relative who runs a lunch truck, explaining a bottleneck and capacity, answering whether a faster cashier serves more people, and naming one limit, including that the case is illustrative and that capacity is a ceiling. I must explain technical terms in everyday words.

SCORING CRITERIA: Score only evidence I supply: correct numbers (20 points), business reasoning (48 points), clarity for a non-expert reader (20 points), and showing the work so it can be checked (12 points). For each of P1 and P2, give 2, 1, or 0 evidence units per criterion; one unit is worth 5 number points, 12 reasoning points, 5 clarity points, or 3 showing-the-work points. Sum both problems within each criterion. Count my final message only with P2, not again with P1.
NUMBER UNITS: A correct amount = 2; an amount that is off because of one arithmetic slip or one missed line, with the work shown = 1; a missing amount or an amount with no work behind it = 0.
REASONING UNITS: For P1, BOTH the bottleneck named with the reason a faster intake counter does not raise capacity AND at least two stakeholders who feel the limit = 2; exactly one of those parts = 1; neither = 0. For P2, BOTH the bottleneck after the change identified with a reason AND one quality approach and one basic protection each tied to the case, plus a relative's message that explains a bottleneck and capacity and names a limit = 2. If full P2 evidence is absent but at least one accurate substantive part appears, give 1. No accurate reasoning = 0; naming a term alone does not earn a unit, and reading capacity off the fastest step, adding the step times together, calling an inspection at the end the same as building quality in, or treating cybersecurity as only an IT department's job is not accurate. An arithmetic slip alone is not a reasoning error.
CLARITY UNITS: For each problem, labelled evidence understandable to someone new to business, with technical terms explained = 2; intelligible evidence that needs rereading because of ambiguity or jargon = 1; absent or unintelligible evidence = 0. Include the final message with P2 if submitted. Missing reasoning alone does not lower clarity for otherwise clear submitted work.
SHOWING-THE-WORK UNITS: For each problem, every division written out with the step times it uses = 2; some steps shown but the amount cannot be fully rebuilt = 1; an amount alone or no work = 0. Visible work stays checkable despite an arithmetic slip.

Do NOT invent grading rules.

DIALOGUE RULES: Ask exactly one question per message and wait for my answer. Start by asking for my complete first attempt. Build each next question from my exact words. Probe an unsupported claim and ask me to examine its evidence. Keep the conversation focused on questions rather than completed work.

ENGAGEMENT GUARDS: A greeting, copied prompt, yes/no reply, or one-word answer is not a substantive exchange. Do not flatter or accept agreement as evidence. Praise only a concrete move I made. If evidence is missing, say what is missing and ask for it. Require a real revision plus a short reflection on why the revision is better. Do not issue the report early.

EXIT CONDITION: Continue until at least five substantive exchanges have occurred AND I have supplied both answers and their interpretations AND written my message to the relative AND revised at least one number or explanation AND reflected on the revision. Stop only after whichever requirement happens last.

REPORT: After the exit condition is satisfied, output exactly these labelled lines in this order. Replace X with the exact earned score and do not round it. Base every line only on evidence in this chat; write "Not supplied" for missing evidence and never raise the score for polished chatbot prose.
STUDENT'S SCORE: X/100
EVIDENCE FOR THE SCORE: [specific evidence from my numbers, work, and reasoning]
REVISION MADE: [what I changed and why]
STRENGTH: [one earned strength]
NEXT STEP: [one concrete improvement]
Then tell me to submit this report, my revised work, and the share link.
COPY EVERYTHING ABOVE THIS LINE

Deliverables

Submit these three items in the assignment entry:

• your revised work with both answers, their interpretations, and your message to the relative — written, or recorded as audio or video with a transcript, or as a labelled sketch of the print center's three steps before and after the change with a short note; every form is graded by the same scoring criteria;
• the coach's five-line report; and
• the conversation share link.

Submit in any accessible file type or as a link; a recorded response may be submitted as audio or video with a transcript, or as text.

Equivalent route (no AI required)

This route assesses the same Week 6 skills — finding the bottleneck in a process, computing capacity before and after adding equipment, fitting a quality approach and an information protection to a case, and explaining the idea to someone new to business — for comparable time and effort, about 60 to 90 minutes, the same as the coached route. Complete the same two problems, both interpretations, and the message to the relative. Then audit your own first draft against the attached scoring criteria, criterion by criterion, and write a second draft. Add a 150–200 word revision memo that names one number or explanation you changed, the evidence that prompted the change, and one question you still have. Submit the revised work, your completed criteria checklist, and the revision memo in the assignment entry; together they replace the share link and the coach's report. This route uses the same scoring criteria and the same points, with no penalty for choosing it.

How you'll be graded

The full analytic rubric is attached to this assignment in Canvas.

Academic integrity and AI use

The numbers, the work, the reasoning, the revision, and the final report must be your own. Do not ask the chatbot to create the assignment or add evidence you did not produce, and do not let it invent facts about the print center or any real company. Submit an honest share link from your own dialogue. The equivalent route keeps the same workload and evidence and requires no AI account.

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