Nivaar worked solution (AI-drafted; not reviewed by a licensed engineer)
National Technical Examinations — December 2017 — 98-Ind-A4 Production Management. Three-hour, closed-book exam; Casio or Sharp approved calculators only. Format: eight questions, each worth 20 marks (sub-part weights 10/10 as tabulated on the front-page marking scheme); only the first five questions appearing in the answer book are marked, so candidates effectively choose 2 of 3 in Section A and 3 of 5 in Section B. All eight are solved below for completeness. The paper asks for point-form answers wherever possible; the solutions below use full working for clarity.
Reference texts: Nahmias & Olsen, Production and Operations Analysis (7th ed., Waveland/McGraw-Hill) — forecasting, inventory (EOQ/EPQ) and aggregate planning; Sipper & Bulfin, Production: Planning, Control, and Integration — production scheduling, JIT/kanban and shop-floor implementation gaps; Hillier & Lieberman, Introduction to Operations Research (11th ed.) — LP formulation and project scheduling (CPM/PERT); Pinedo, Scheduling: Theory, Algorithms, and Systems (5th ed.) — parallel-machine scheduling and days-off workforce scheduling; Hopp & Spearman, Factory Physics (3rd ed.) — variability, buffering, and production scheduling; Liker, The Toyota Way, and Shingo, A Revolution in Manufacturing: The SMED System — 5S, Five Whys, SMED and lean root-cause analysis.