59:005  Engineering Problem Solving-I    Sections 9 and 10

HW 2, 3 & 4

Home Up HW 1 HW 2, 3 & 4 HW 5 HW 6 HW 7 Project 1 Project 2 Project 3 Project 4 Present. Tips

HW 2, 3  and 4  - Process Engineering

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Your task in HW 2, 3 and 4 is to develop an understanding of the processes  used to satisfy customer requirements by an example food service operation, such as McDonalds, Wendy's, Subway, or similar. The aim is to give you some experiences of working as a team and of process engineering.

Process engineering is used to evaluate complex systems consisting of parallel and series processes. You will use a simplified process engineering approach in this task to examine such issues as reducing customer wait time. See HERE for an example application in health care management.

Deliverables

HW2

Sessions on Wed. 30 August (Section 9) and Fri. 1 Sept (Section 10) will involve selections of teams of 3 and selections of the fast food restaurants to be examined.

You will need to work in teams of THREE.

For HW2, your task, should you choose to accept it, is to

  1. Visit a restaurant as a team

  2. Generate a list of the components and the products the restaurant produces.

  3. Given these lists you must generate a component-product matrix.  (A simplified example is provided below)

  4. Determine the critical components for both components that are used only in one product as well as the components that are used in many products. 

Therefore you have three items to submit as your team. 

  1. The list of components and products the restaurant produces.

  2. The Component-Product Matrix.

  3. The lists of critical components for both single use and multi-use components.

This should be email to eng_0056@engineering.uiowa.edu as a single Word attachment, with the names of the team members clearly identified.  DUE Sect 9 Tuesday Sept 5 at 4:30 pm  and Sect 10 Thursday Sept. 7, 4:30 pm.

Hypothetical Restaurant Example:

Menu

*Grilled Chicken Cesar Salad- lettuce, grilled chicken, Swiss cheese, Cesar dressing, croutons
*Grilled Chicken Sandwich- bun, grilled chicken, Swiss cheese, and lettuce. 

The list of components is:

Buns
Grilled Chicken
Lettuce
Swiss cheese
Cesar Dressing
Croutons

The Component-Product matrix is:

 

Grilled Chicken Cesar Salad

Grilled Chicken Sandwich

Buns

 

*

Grilled Chicken

*

*

Lettuce

*

*

Swiss cheese

*

*

Cesar Dressing

*

 

Croutons

*

 

Therefore the critical components are:

For single use:

Buns
Croutons
Cesar Dressing

For use in all or most of the products

Grilled Chicken
Swiss cheese
Lettuce 

This means that without the single use components, single menu items we would not be able to make single items, however without the multi-use components we would not be able to make any, or most of the menu items.  This shows that the components are important for different reasons.

 

HW3

Sessions on Wed. 6 September (Section 9) and Fri. 8 Sept (Section 10) will involve overviews of flowcharting and HW3.

For HW3 you need determine  a process map (using the symbols discussed in class, see HERE) to help address the following:

  1. How does the restaurant handle product variety and speed of delivery? Describe the overall approach to handing the issues of delivering a variety of products within a short time. For example, Taco Bell mixes together a range of ingredients to produce a wider range of products. These are assembled on receipt of the customer order.
  2. How is customer wait time reduced? Describe how the restaurant reduces the total time that a customer has to wait from the time the customer enters the store to the time that they receive the meal. You can refer to your answer to 1. above for part of your response. For example, Taco Bell has a dedicated order taker that enters the order in the computer system. Product assemblers see the order on a computer screen at their work station and begin assembly.
  3. Where does it use Pull and/or Push approaches? For example, Taco Bell has a push system for the ingredients that are "pushed" from the central facility to each restaurant. Products are then "pulled" by being assembled to customer demand.
  4. How does it handle bulges in demand?

Write a paragraph on each of these questions.

Submit your work as an attached Word file to the  class e-mail account eng_0056@engineering.uiowa.edu  Make sure that you have the names of the team on the top of the document.

  • DUE HW3 3:30 pm Monday 11 Sept.

HW 4

You will need to produce a PowerPoint file for a 10 minute presentation to the class. Include the following slides:

  1. A title slide, giving the name of the restaurant chain examined and the names of the team.
  2. A slide giving a brief overview of the restaurant chain.
  3. A slide showing the main products.
  4. A slide showing the main ingredients.
  5. A slide showing how the the restaurant chain handles product variety.
  6. As slide showing a process map.
  7. A slide showing how the restaurant chain handles speed of delivery.

You can also include a photograph or two  taken of the restaurant. Submit your work as an attached PowerPoint file to the  class e-mail account eng_0056@engineering.uiowa.edu  .

  • Due HW4 3:30 pm Wednesday September 13
  • You will present this material on Sept 13 (Section 9) or Sept 15 (Section 10)
  • Complete a peer evaluation of your group to be handed in after your presentation

 

 

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