Littlefield Assignment_Introduction and Game 1-2017-18.pdf

INDIAN INSTITUTE OF MANAGEMENT AHMEDABAD OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT II PGP/PGP-FABM/FPM –  I,  I, Term II, 2017-18 Littlefield Simulation The Littlefield Simulation game is designed to give students an experience of running a factory shopfloor by utilizing the various OM concepts that they have learnt: capacity  planning, queueing, inventory inventory planning, etc. Please follow these steps: a) Review the attached document ‘Littlefield Technologies: Overview’  b) You will play the game as a team: each group as identified by the PGP office will  play as a team. c) Identify a name for your team (remember in Game 2 when you compete with other teams, they will be able to observe your your team’s performance. So identify a name whereby the identification of your team may be eas y/hard as you may desire). d)  Note the dates outlined below. e) Go to http://op.responsive.net/lt/iim/start.html and register your team (use the access code ‘ahmedabad’). ahmedabad’). Do this before 1800 hrs on 18 November . f) In “enter section number here”, enter your section name: A or B or C or D or E g) Enter full names of all team members in i n your group. h) Send an email to the Academic Associate: Sections A&C: Madhuri Jha [Email: [email protected]]]; B&D: Shilpa Nagre [Email: [email protected]]; Section E: Vaseem [email protected] Shaikh [Email: [email protected]]. Complete the process outlined above before 18 November, 1800 hours when the registration window closes. If you miss out, your group name cannot be added later on. So, it makes a lot of sense to finish the registration process ASAP and send emails to the respective AAs. i) Once the simulator has started, students can access their teams from http://op.responsive.net/lt/iim/entry.html.. Await subsequent instructions for accessing http://op.responsive.net/lt/iim/entry.html Game 1. Important Dates for Littlefield Simulation Date 17 November 18 November 19 November 20 November 28 November 30 November 9 December

Time 1800 hrs 1800 hrs 1800 hrs 1800 hrs 1800 hrs 1800 hrs 0845 hrs

Details Open Registration Window Close Registration Window Open Game 1 Start Game 1 Open Game 2 (will be evaluated) Start Game 2 (will be evaluated) Final Group Report submission/in-class Presentation

Game 1 This game will give you a feel of the simulation, and an opportunity to change/edit some of the  parameters for which you are given control. The number of parameters that can be changed will increase in Game 2. Though the results of Game 1 will not count towards your grade, please track all your actions and the rationale for the same. Background

Littlefield Technologies (LT) opened its first and only factory to produce its newly developed Digital Satellite System (DSS) receivers. LT mainly sells to retailers and small manufacturers using the DSS’s in more complex products. LT charges a premium and competes by promising to ship a receiver within 72 hours of receiving the order, or the customer will receive a rebate based on the delay. The product lifetime of many high-tech electronic products is short, and the DSS receiver is no exception. After 268 days of operation, the plant will cease producing the DSS receiver, and retool the factory. Any leftover inventory would be rendered useless with no salvage value. In the initial months, demand is expected to grow at a roughly linear rate for about 6 months. It is expected that LT will announce their next generation product then, and this will lead to the demand beginning to decline, at a roughly linear rate. Although orders arrive randomly to LT, management expects that, on average, demand will follow the trends outlined above. Management’s main concern is managing the capacity of the factory in response to the complex demand pattern predicted. Delays resulting from insufficient capacity would undermine LT’s promised lead times and ultimately force LT to turn awa y orders. Assignment

It has now been approx. 50 days since this DSS went to sale, and LT has started to notice that a few of their receivers have been delivered after their due dates. In response, management has installed a high- powered operations team (your team) to manage the factory’s capacity. For the next 168 simulated days (one-week = 168 hours in real time), you must buy or sell machines to maximize the factory’s overall cash position at the end of the 268 day period. Currently, the factory has one board stuffing machine, one tester machine, and one tuning machine. Your shop-floor supervisor has recently completed the following processing time estimates: Step 1 2 3 4

Station 1 2 3 2

Set-up time (per lot) 0.4 hours 0 1.5* 0

Operation time (per unit) 0.0625 hours 0.02 0.002* 0.02

* tuning time is exponential. In addition, very little variability was observed around the processing times indicated above for process steps 1, 2 and 4, so that they can be considered deterministic for practical  purposes. Process step 3, which is performed on station 3 (tuning), is more labor-intensive, so that the corresponding processing times exhibit more variability and their distribution seems roughly exponential (coefficient of variation equal to 1). You can change the number of machines at any station by clicking on the station and then

clicking on “Edit Data” in the menu that pops up. You may also change the way testing is  being scheduled. Currently, jobs at the tester [station 2] are scheduled First-In-First-Out (FIFO), but you can also give priority status to the initial tests or the final tests (in addition to FIFO). This may be relevant in Game 2. When the simulation period begins, there will already be 50 days of history available for your review. The simulator will run at a rate of one simulated day per one real hour  for the next 7 days after the simulation period begins. After the assignment window ends, an additional 50 days of simulation will be executed at once. Thus, there will be a total of 268 days of simulation corresponding to a product life time of about 9 months. You will have control of the factory for 168 of the 268 simulated days (day 51 to day 218). After the simulation is over, you can check the status of your factory, but the factory will no longer be running. You will have full control of your factories beginning at 1800 hours on November 20, 2017 . Before that, you will have access to the Littlefield factory to observe, download and analyze data from the first 50 days of operations, and become familiar with the simulation website. After the simulation is over, you will be able to check the status of your factory, but the factory will no longer be running.