so a meeting didn't pan out tonight but whatever. eliot agreed to put the whole thing together but he has shit to do tomorrow night so we all have to get our shit to him by like 8PM tomorrow. so heres what we have to do:

Case Questions to Answer in Your Deliverable

As part of their contract with you, Littlefield managers want your team to perform data analyses supporting the actions you take in their factory. Managers want you to answer the following:

1. Looking at the queues and utilization of the various stations in your factory at Day 50, what problems do you notice? Identify each problem and state the effect that it has on your factory’s operation.

2. Using the demand data provided to you before you take over the factory along with other relevant information from the above case, perform an M/M/S queuing analysis of Station 1*. Use this queuing analysis to determine the number of machines that you want to run at Station 1. What is the expected queue length (L_q) at Station 1, given the number of machines you choose? What is the expected waiting time in system (W_s) of an order at Station 1?

Perform a similar analysis for Station 3.

3. Using the data given to you prior to your takeover, develop an estimate for annual (268 day) demand for this product. Calculate the economic order quantity (EOQ) and reorder point (ROP) that you should use. Clearly list the values of the relevant variables that you used in calculating the EOQ and ROP. What assumptions did you have to make?

4. What is your recommended tactic for dealing with the end-of-lifetime inventory restocking at the end of this product’s lifecycle? How did you carry this out? What assumptions did you make?

Team Deliverable

Your team should turn in one summary of what actions you took during the week you had access to the factory, why you took those actions, and in retrospect whether you think you did the right thing. Show analysis to justify your conclusions.

Report Guidelines

Your report should be single-spaced, and should be written as a memo to the managers of Littlefield Technologies. Your summary should be about 2-3 pages in length. Your report should include:

1. An answer to each of the four questions above.

2. An explanation of what actions you took, why you took those actions, and the results you obtained. How closely did you follow the values you calculated in the questions above while you were in charge of the factory? If you deviated, why?

3. A statement of anything you would do differently if you were to run this same simulation again (remember, the exact demand distribution would be somewhat different.).

You may include an appendix (up to two additional pages) that presents regressions, forecast equations, or any other data analysis you perform during your control of the factory. This write-up is due Thursday, November 13, 2008.

I figured Matt could do case question 1, ben could do case question 2, kyle could do case question 3, eliot could do case question 4, and ill take care of report guidelines 2 and 3. if anyone is particularly unhappy with their part just trade with someone. so yeah just make sure you get it to eliot by 8 and we didnt fair too well on the simulation this time around so lets try to make up for it in the report, salvage a decent grade hopefully. Also if anyone whose questions involve data calculations should also email your stuff to me when youre done so i can incorporate it into the summary
my email is rooneypc@bc.edu and eliots is arntzel@bc.edu

changed the reorder quantity to half as much and the reorder point to twice as much so well make twice the orders of half as much inventory to reduce inventory holding costs

so eliot and i talked, tried calling you guys but to no avail. were real low down so we need to play this very carefully. demand is constant in this one and our lead times are just fine so we don't need to purchase anymore machinery. in an effort to reduce inventory cost to help out our cash flow we slightly reduced our inventory and are going to wait until we can see if its effecting our lead times. if lead times arent effected well lower it a little more. we think the reason everyone else has so much money is cuz they financed with debt and we used our cash, but theyll have to pay that debt back at 20% and are only making 10% off the cash so hopefully we'll shoot up at the end.
bottomline: we dont need to purchase anything else and lets see how low we can get inventory without effecting our lead times and then just wait it out.
and no offense guys but that last machine purchase was unnecessary, utilization was fine for machine 1 so if youre going to change anything please make sure it isnt a waste of money or going to cost us in the end

also keep in mind trends of the data we have, since random fluctuations make single data points unreliable for decisions. investments are costly so we just gotta make sure theyre warranted. i went ahead and switched us to a more profitable payment plan since our lead time is below 2 days now

10/31 4:20PM

so eliot and i met around lunch time today just to try to get some direction, tried to get in touch with the rest of you but werent quite successful. anyways we saw that utilization of machines 1 and 3 were both at a solid 100% so we decided to buy 2 machines, one for each station. demand this time around, except for fluctuations, is supposed to be constant. We figured itd be a good idea to get our lead time down to under 2 days, then switch to the payment schedule with the $1000 payoff but a 2-4 day lead time. with demand being relatively constant we should be able to set a nice reorder point and level of machinery that will keep us at a very profitable level. itll take a few days to figure out what this is, but we figured wed just buy some machines, see if it was enough, then if not buy more til were at the point where lead times are low enough so we can make those calculations and switch the payment plan. let me know if you guys have any different opinions or anything isnt clear. last time eliot and i ran the whole simulation and i know u guys said youd take this one which if you guys still wanna do is fine- the main things we saw last time was that lead times were incredibly important as they effect revenue and the entire grade is on how much cash we have so anytime lead times rise to levels where were not getting paid just find out why and correct it. we have a few new variables this time around which will make it somewhat more complicated though but if anyone posts anything they run into here we should all just check this fairly frequently and well figure it out

Meeting Time

Hey, I know we are trying to set up a meeting for sometime tomorrow or the next day, I can't do tomorrow, but I can do thursday night if that works for everyone.

Individual assignments

Mike Rooney
1. Using data from the period prior to Day 50, estimate the capacity of the machine at Station 1. Can you do the same for the machines in Station 2 and Station 3? (Hint: Which station is the bottleneck? What seems to be the maximum number of jobs processed by a machine in one day during this period?)

Ben/Kyle
2. Using demand data, forecast (i) total demand on Day 100, and (ii) capacity (machine) requirements for Day 100.
Please create a graph for each of these, and 3 different forecasting techniques. 2 moving average 10 and 15 day, and also a linear trend for the first 50 days that predicts the 100th day. call me if you dont have these figures already, MIke rooney was the expert for capacity machines so you may want to get in contact with him, this is going to mean looking at what demand/lead times were doing vs machine utilization.

Eliot Arntz
3. Around Day 100, create forecasts for (i) total demand on Days 130, 150, and 170, and (ii) related capacity (machine) requirements. (Choose your own data periods. List the assumptions you base your forecast on.) How well did you do with these forecasts?

Matt
4.Try to identify on which days (i) demand levels out, and (ii) demand starts to decrease. (Hint: Moving Averages and Tracking Signal are often useful for tracking data over time.)
download the data if you don't know how call one of us. this is easiest done in a spread sheet and the moving average figures have already been done.
again graphs etc. to prove your points

If you have problems call me or text -973-615-3038-
also please post the earliest time after 6:00 you can meet tomorrow

if you have night classes just let me know when and we can meet after