Littlefield Game

Prof. Mellie PullmanOnline Registration & Game

Overview

Why are we doing this?

• Instead of a “textbook” problems, you will apply analysis techniques in a simulated service process environment.

• More “real” and more “fun”• A team effort

Getting on to the game, come prepared with a credit card, your

team name and password (details on their format in next slides)

http://lab.responsive.net/lt/pullman/start.html

Click here

Create A New Account

Click here

Follow step–by–step instructionsto purchase your access code

Enter course code: cash

Registering Your Team

Enter team password * All lower case letters or numbers * No punctuation or spaces

example

Enter student’s names * Caps and spaces are OK * Please NO apostrophes!

Hannah LiskerCharlie WongShane O’Brien

Hannah LiskerCharlie WongShane OBrien

Enter student access codes

akjndk8lslhfg7wkhkjft96l

AFTER THAT:Your team is officially registered

(register prior to break; at 7:30 PM the first 50 days will run and

suspend. Resumes on January 13 at 6 PMFinishes on January 20 at 6 PM.

A Brief Overview

Your Game:Four steps at three stations

1) Sample Preparing– Step 1 board

stuffing

2) Testing– Steps 2 & 4 products

are tested and information is recorded

3) Tuning– Step 3

Capacity Costs

• Station #1SAMPLE PREPARING MACHINES

– $90,000 each• Station #2

TESTING MACHINES

– $80,000 each• Station #3

TUNING MACHINES

– $100,000 each• Resale value for any machine

– $10,000 each

Factory Process

• Every step has its own process time

• Littlefield measures average daily utilization rates at each station

• Queues hold waiting jobs

lead time = process time + wait time

Orders and Kits

• Every arriving customer order is matched with a new test kit– test kits cost $600 each– shipments have a fixed ordering cost = $1,000 – supplier’s lead time is always 4 days

• Three criteria to place an order:1) Inventory on-hand is lower than the reorder

point2) There are no shipments of materials in transit3) Cash on hand is sufficient for the order quantity

Reorder Point

– Stocks are replenished when they reach some pre-determined “low point”.• A system commonly used by squirrels• Well, also by you, your checkbook vendor, and many

other systems.– In this game, you can not change the reorder

point or inventory order quantity.

Logging Into Your Game after the simulator has been initialized

during the break

http://lab.responsive.net/lt/pullman/entry.html

example

Enter team name

Logging Into Your Game

Enter team’s password

example

Logging Into Your Game

Explore Your factory

Click Box: Customer Order Queue

Click “Plot Job Arrivals” and Download Data

• Click download button

• Save to desktop

• Open with MS Excel or another spreadsheet application

• Copy > Paste data columns to a master worksheet

• Index by Day

Opening the data in Excel

• You will have 50 days worth of data until it starts running dynamically

• The demand will increase until around day 150 and then level off

• Figure out the demand point where it levels off

daynumber of jobs arriving each day

1 2

2 2

3 1

4 0

5 3

6 0

7 0

8 3

9 3

10 1

11 3

12 3

13 2

14 2

15 6

Forecasting Demand (arrival rate of jobs)

• Overall Linear trend• = SLOPE(known_y's,known_x's)• = INTERCEPT(known_y's,known_x's) • Forecast for the demand at the point where

you think it will level out.

Look at Capacity Problems(station 1 Queue Box)

1 4 7 10 13 16 19 22 25 28 31 34 37 40 43 46 490

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

800

daily average number of kits queued for station 1

daily average number of kits queued for station 1

Click on Station 1 to see Utilization

Might want to see what happened

1 4 7 10 13 16 19 22 25 28 31 34 37 40 43 46 490

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1

1.2

utilization of station 1, averaged over each day

utilization of station 1, averaged over each day

Completed Job data

Current Job Lead Time through system & contract information

Expected Utilization =

Key Hints

• Forecasts estimate future outcomes• They are not known for precision• A prediction interval should be considered

Arrival Rate * Process Time # of Machines

Key Hints• Balance your work stations, reduce bottleneck• Proactive are better than reactive strategies

Deliverable• No more than 2 written pages which cover your

teams experience• What did you do (in sequence)?• Why did you make that decision? • How did it work out?• What did you learn during the process?• Include an Appendix with a “journal” and any

relevant calculations.

Good Luck!