Production Lab exercise - Essay Example

Production Laboratory The purpose of this exercise is to assemble Legos based on the orders from the s. We are to form different teams, witheach team having its own special task. However, we need to wait for the orders from the customers before we can start to assemble our Legos. Compared to the paper puppet exercise, I find this activity much more challenging because there are more people involved and more raw materials are needed to create the final product. I was assigned as the material handler 1 for this production laboratory exercise.

During the first round, I observed that most people still do not know what they are supposed to do. In fact, when the first order came in, many people were suggesting different ideas on how to accomplish the work, making things more difficult and complicated for me. Moreover, the first material that came in was not for the first order but rather, for the third order. This makes things even more confusing for me and for worker assembly 1 because both of us have to work together. It was really frustrating because I know that the rest of the material handlers were waiting for me to get my materials and pass it to them.

After a while, I and my assembly worker got the hang of it and we got better and faster. We communicated better with the production control people and I communicated better with my assembly worker. The first round went well after all, as my team managed to finish all orders with no leftover inventories. This lowered our production budget and increased our profits. We managed to get $18 a minute for our first round. Then came the second round with a whole bunch of orders. It was making me a little nervous and anxious because our orders increased from 3- 5 to approximately 10-15.

I felt so conscious seeing my assembly worker and the rest of the material handlers waiting for me to hand over something to them. But everything went smoothly after the second big order came in because I already know how many raw materials to get (in lots of 5) for me and for my assembly worker. Despite all the hectic orders, we managed to finish round two with a little inventory. I think that just like the paper puppet exercise, we can do better jobs when we get the hang of it. I can definitely do better if I could just calm my nerves, focus harder, and help my assembly worker set the orders right.

Like in Joe’s Garage, panicking or getting yelled at doesn’t really help to get the product done faster. Instead, it delays production. Finally, the most important thing is to get the finish products to the customers on time.