Learning from a Classroom Manufacturing Exercise

Abstract

By performing a hands-on manufacture of a paper product along a fabrication line set up in a classroom, students experience the complexities of an actual production line—how to work with people to construct a smoothly flowing line and analyze and deal with technical changes. In particular, they learn how a change in one position on the line affects the manpower, methods, and machines of the entire line. The quantitative as well as qualitative problems of batch processing, work-in-progress inventory, misutilization of labor, and even elements of product liability become “live concepts” instead of dry exercises from a book. Students in an MBA program with no real-life experiences against which to reflect what they are learning in their classes are able to experience a working fabrication line in all its complexities. They are challenged by having to design their own products and the jigs and fixtures to make them—even when they have no engineering or specialized knowledge. One group, for example, manages to design a production jig for a folding step that other groups have been doing by hand; the jig enables a 57% improvement in production per labor minute. The exercises also demonstrate the costs of idle time: When a batch process is mishandled, worker idle time jumps to 19% of the total time needed to run the batch. This exercise prepares students for future job decisions involving production problems of in-house manufacturing or service operations, off-shore procurement, and quality control.