The demand during the simulation follows a predefined pattern, which is marked by stable low demand, increasing demand, stable high demand and then demand declining sharply. Decision 1 Your write-up should address the following points: A brief description of what actions you chose and when. While ordering and setting the next reorder points, I kept in mind that the demand is increasing and I should have sufficient safety stock (buffer), so as not to lose revenues due to inventory shortages. Initially we set the lot size to 3x20, attempting to take advantage of w . Free access to premium services like Tuneln, Mubi and more. Shortly after day 50, we switched to the contract-2. Seeing that the machines could process a lot more inventory faster than we expected, we decided to change our reorder points and order quantities, to 6000 units and 24,000 units, respectively. Information about the two alternatives follows. Very useful for students who will do the simulation for the first time. Littlefield Simulation 2: Occupylittlefield With our second littlefield simulation complete, we have reinforced many of the concepts and lessons learned in class. We learned the lesson from that simulation that we should have added machines much earlier. I have made a few errors but think I stabilized. However on observing the further utilization problems and the fact that machine at station-1 costed only 25000 $, we decided to add the 8th machine. Management would like to increase revenue and decrease costs. writing your own paper, but remember to Littlefield Technologies is a factory simulator that allows students to compete with each other over the web while developing operations management skills. This study aims to contribute to the ongoing debate on behavioral operational research (BOR), specifically discussing the potential of system dynamics (SD) models to analyze decision-making, 5th International Conference on Higher Education Advances (HEAd'19), Game-based learning refers to the use of game thinking and mechanics to engage and motivate students in the learning process. It appears that you have an ad-blocker running. Do a proactive capacity management: Job scheduling. Reducing agency staff is a smart choice because it can eliminate contracted salaries which cost a, The machine efficiency data was analysed, this included machine running speed and machine operational stoppages. Winning Strategy for the /ittlefield Simulation *ame A System Dynamics Approach A Major Qualifying Project /Interactive Qualifying Project Report Submitted to the Faculty . The account includes the decisions we made, the actions we took, and their impact on production and the bottom line. As we will see later, this was a slight mistake since the interest rate did have a profound impact on our earnings compared to other groups. Customer orders processed within 1 day make $1000 Customer orders that take over 3 days make no money Between 1 and 3 days revenue is a decreasing linear function. For the purpose of this report, we have divided the simulation into seven stages after day 50, explicating the major areas of strategically significant decisions that were made and their resulting first increased our inventory reorder point to 10,800 units and changed the order quantity amount to 1800 units. 5 When the exercise started, we decided that when the lead time hit 1 day, we would buy one station 1 machine based on our analysis that station 1 takes the longest time which is 0.221 hrs simulation time per batch. Inventory June By continuing well Finally, on day 150 we try an all in strategy spending $160.000 in 1 machine for station 1 and 2 to increase the capacity and to process jobs only on conditions of contract 3. 185 Therefore our strategy to win this game was controlling the Littlefield Labs system capacity and the inventory level with choosing a right contract as well as keeping the cash daily as much as possible. One colleague was responsible for customer order management and the other for the capacity management. It was quickly determined that the machine 1 was our bottleneck, as it was the only machine with 100% utilization and excess number of jobs in the queue. 241 After viewing the queues and the capacity utilization at each station and finding all, measures to be relatively low, we decided that we could easily move to contract 3, Except for one night early on in the simulation where we reduced it to contract 2, because we wouldnt be able to monitor the factory for demand spikes, we operated, on contract 3 almost the entire time. 0 Weve updated our privacy policy so that we are compliant with changing global privacy regulations and to provide you with insight into the limited ways in which we use your data. Littlefield Simulation Solutions and analytical decisons made. Purpose. By Group 4: The mission of our team is to complete all aspects of the team assignment on time and to the full requirements set forth by Professor McNickle. Page | 5 1.0 Introduction Littlefield Simulation is a game widely used in management courses that replicates a manufacturer's decision making mechanism. In terms of choosing a priority for machine 2, we decided to switch to priority to step 2 since machine 2's utilization was consistently higher than machine 3's. Second, we controlled the inventory level with finding right QOPT (Optimal Order Quantity) and reorder point according to continuous review system method. In addition, because the factory is essentially bootstrapping itself financially, management is worried about the possibility of bankruptcy. Littlefields management would like to be able to charge the premium prices that customers would be willing to pay for dramatically shorter lead times. By doing so we have a Gross profit of $1,125,189, |production increase. Using the analysis, demand for the 268 days of production was forecasted, and our strategy set accordingly., After the initial observations of demand for littlefield labs (day 52), one of the first steps we took was to identify the bottleneck in the production chain. Littlefield Simulation Report: Team A Very useful for students who will do the si, 100% found this document useful (4 votes), 100% found this document useful, Mark this document as useful, 0% found this document not useful, Mark this document as not useful, Save Littlefield Simulation Report For Later, Do not sell or share my personal information. As expected, the contracts with lesser lead-times fetch the company higher revenues per day. Chu Kar Hwa, Leonard Based on initial management analyses, customer demand for this new product is expected to be random, but the average demand will be level over the products 268-day lifetime. You may use it as a guide or sample for This proved to be the most beneficial contract as, long as we made sure that we had the machines necessary to accommodate the, The first time our revenues dropped at all, we found that the capacity utilization at, station 2 was much higher than at any of the other stations. 4. At the time that the United Nations was founded, Great Britain administered the area of Palestine as a result of a mandate that had been assigned to them by the League of Nations. Littlefield Stimulation field paper group strategies for the little field simulation game our primary goal for the little field simulation game is to meet the DismissTry Ask an Expert Ask an Expert Sign inRegister Sign inRegister Home Ask an ExpertNew My Library Discovery Institutions Southern New Hampshire University StuDocu University Starting at 5 PM on Wednesday, February 27, the simulation will begin The game will end at 9 PM on Sunday, March 3. In March, April, and May will fire 4, 3, 3, employees respectively. Get original paper in 3 hours and nail the task. 49 Littlefield Technologies is an effective teaching tool that the students seem to really enjoy and the students are forced to think logically about the problems that they are facing and they learn from iterative experimentation. Please refer to the appendix (Exhibit I) for detailed financials., The Elijah Heart Center needs to make changes on cost-cutting, funding options for equipment, and funding options for capital expansion. I was mainly responsible for the inventory . The winning team is the team with the most cash at the end of the game (cash on hand less debt). Eventually, demand should begin to decline at a roughly linear rate. Pharapreising and interpretation due to major educational standards released by a particular educational institution as well as tailored to your educational institution if different; Although the process took a while to completely understand during the initial months of the simulation, the team managed to adjust, learn quickly and finish in 7th place with a cash balance of $1,501,794. Team 9 The study suggests that developing a simple ILE is essential in raising the interest of a wide audience involved in sustainable development policy making and after stakeholders gain confidence in the benefit of the ILE, it becomes easier to integrate simulation exercises into planning processes at national, regional and local levels. Managing Capacity and Lead Time at Littlefield Technologies Team 9s Summary Once the initial first 50 days of data became available, we plotted the data against different forecasting methods: Moving average, weighted moving average, exponential smoothing, exponential smoothing with trend, and exponential smoothing with trend and season. at Littlefield Technologies Spring 2007( Faculty can choose between two settings: a high-tech factory named Littlefield Technologies or a blood testing service named Littlefield Labs. Here are our learnings. Doing this simulation review it will show just how to go about making these changes to save money. We did intuitive analysis initially and came up the strategy at the beginning of the game. UNSCOP recommended two solutions. Activate your 30 day free trialto continue reading. We had split the roles. . 121 The product lifetime of many high-tech electronic products is short, and the DSS receiver is no exception. Accessing your factory In short, our inventory management could have been better towards the end. requirements? 17 As this is a short life-cycle product, managers expect that demand during the 268 day period will grow as customers discover the product, eventually level out, and then decline. tuning Management Strategy Closer to Day 50, shop floor space constraints are limiting the number of jobs being accepted into the factory. We had split the roles. Background At this point our orders we getting out on time with few exceptions. We could also see based on the. Rank | Team | Cash Balance ($) | The decisions to be made are regarding buying or selling machines, setting inventory policies i.e. At this point, all capacity and remaining inventory will be useless, and thus have no value. We decided to purchase an additional machine for station 1 because it was $10,000 cheaper, utilization was higher here, and this is where all the orders started. Overall I felt the Littlefield simulation to be an interesting cost leadership exercise with strong focus on the operations management. submit it as your own as it will be considered plagiarism. 20 Littlefiled simulation game 1. This left the factory with zero cash on hand. They include five articles on basic research in learning and teaching principles for system dynamics, three articles on interactive learning, Purpose Having more machines seemed like a win-win situation since it does not increase our expenses of running the business, yet decreases our risk of having lead times of over a day. board The five options for cost cutting are reducing agency staff, downsizing staff, reducing benefits, changing the skill mix, and reducing length of stay for the patients. 2013 After letting our system adjust to the changes, we moved to contract 2 when the lead time was decreased to about 1 day. Background max revenue for unit in Simulation 1. In order to expand capacity and prepare for the forecasted demand increase, the team decided to immediately add a second machine at Station 1. Last year our forecast sales were 24,000 when we only sold 19,866; therefore we thought it would be best to leave production at 20,000 bikes. However, it was because we did not create a safety margin for production which came from our over estimating our carrying costs. We did not take any corrective measure to increase our profit margins early in the game. The simulation ends on day-309. Borrowing from the Bank The difference between remaining at $750/order vs. $1250/order could have been as high as 1.3 million dollars over the life of the game (218 days) therefore the cost of new machines was small compared to the benefit and the overall revenue potential made it imperative to get to the lowest lead times possible. Day 50 Expert advisors know that demand will end abruptly on Day 268 and the lab will no longer be necessary. In addition, Miltons regular supplier had hiked about the prices on the motors that he needed by 25%, while Markowitz had been able to find from a supplier overseas for 25% off temporarily to build customer base. 25 I started to decide the order quantity and reorder points based on my own gut feel but considering the previous simulation settings and live simulation behavior. The profit parameter was considered as an average. The company had excess space in the existing facility that could be used for the new machinery. We summarize the nine contributions. One key element that caught my attention was bottleneck issues. OPERATIONS & STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT | | By doing so, the labor costs are significantly reduced and the unit demand will be covered. DEMAND Uploaded by zilikos. Even if negotiations succeeded, however, a binding treaty could not be ratified or implemented, By clicking accept or continuing to use the site, you agree to the terms outlined in our. At day 97, our team ranked first in the overall standing, and wanted to try to maintain this standing for the rest of the simulation., Finally, on day 150 we try an all in strategy spending $160.000 in 1 machine for station 1 and 2 to increase the capacity and to process jobs only on conditions of contract 3. The simulation provided five options for cost cutting at the hospital with only two of the options available to select from, in hopes of the best result. Littlefield Technologies and Littlefield Laboratories Littlefield is an online competitive simulation of a queueing network with an inventory point. Ending Cash Balance: $1,915,226 (6th Place) Part 1: Reasoning for Decisions The Littlefield Technologies management group hired Team A consulting firm to help analyze and improve the operational efficiency of their Digital Satellite Systems receivers manufacturing facility. The remaining days included few high demand and then declining demand days. We had a better understanding of the operation of the littlefield facility and how certain modifications would affect the throughput and lead time. Preparation is necessary to have an advantage. to help you write a unique paper. A collaborative backcasting game, AudaCITY, developed to build transformative capacity in city administrations while also generating deep contextual knowledge to inform a transformative sustainability science research agenda is presented. 100% (5) 100% found this document useful (5 votes) 13K views. Anteaus Rezba Project Having excess inventory, we concluded that 20,000 units should be enough considering our quality has not changed and our advertising will not increase the sales dramatically. (Exhibit 2: Average time per batch of each station). Since the demand was fairly constant, it was not essential to change the reorder point. Littlefield Technologies mainly sells to retailers and small manufacturers using the DSSs in more complex products. Littlefield simulation game is an important learning tool for understanding operations principles in production environments, and therefore it is widely used by many leading business schools. LT managers have decided that, after 268 days of operation, the plant will cease producing the DSS receiver, retool the factory, and sell any remaining inventories. As a result, we continued to struggle with overproduction and avoiding stock outs, but made improvements resulting in less drastic inventory swings in the later. In the first trial simulation, we were hesitant to add machines. When expanded it provides a list of search options that will switch the search inputs to match the current selection. 4 pages. 9. Can you please suggest a winning strategy. 2 | techwizard | 1,312,368 | We decided in favor of the second option. Leena Alex In September we fire 4 employees and October we fire 2 employees cutting our labor cost, but still reaching our unit demand. Choose skilled expert on your subject and get original paper with free plagiarism cost for each test kit in Simulation 1 &2. 15 Background Enjoy access to millions of ebooks, audiobooks, magazines, and more from Scribd. considering the suppliers delivery lead-times of 14-days and a safety stock. report, Littlefield Technologies Simulation: Batch Sizes Analysis. Team Contract November 4th, 2014 33 217 In the Littlefield Simulation it would have been better on Day 51 to switch to the order quantity as recommended by the EOQ framework in order to minimize costs. 15000 By accepting, you agree to the updated privacy policy. Few teams, who took their time to figure out the information, to develop strategies and to make decision during the simulation made their first decisions very late (>100th day). Furthermore, the analysis will be used to provide a basic understanding of how changes in staffing and productivity impact profit and loss., When working as a health care administrator, one must make important financial decisions that can make or break the future of the organization. Littlefield Simulation Analysis Littlefield Initial Strategy When the simulation first started we made a couple of adjustments and monitored the performance of the factory for the first few days. Interstate Manufacturing is considering either replacing one of its old machines with a new machine or having the old machine overhauled. Littlefield Technologies is an online factory management simulator program produced since 1997 by Responsive Learning Technologies for college students to use while taking business management courses. 1. Need a custom essay sample written specially to meet your This means that the last 50 days of the simulation period cannot be influenced through any decision-making either. Traditional military (or defense) contractors manufacture the weapons of war, provide the supplies that are required by armed forces, or perform other services that do not directly involve their personnel in combatant roles. PMC personnel providing security services must be prepared to engage in combatant roles; however, much of their duties will be as guards to prevent breeches of security. In the initial months, demand is expected to grow at a roughly linear rate. ANSWER : Littlefield 1. 2, (Points: 30) |, The aim of this report is to provide an overview of businesses simulations through TOPSIM, a business management game that establishes a link between business management theory and business management in practice., The production capacity in my first 2 quarters was low but only because it was upcoming, The above table showing the total capacity per hour of each machine center was calculated by taking the number of machines and multiplying them by the run time per piece per minute. Course Hero is not sponsored or endorsed by any college or university. stuffing testing Our team operated and managed the Littlefield Technologies facility over the span of 1268 simulated days. 113 Consequently, we lost revenues when the demand neared its peak. Customer demand continues to be random, but the long-run average demand will not change over the product 486-day lifetime. TIA. In my opinion, I can purchase more machines in stations 1,, 2. Littlefield Technologies charges a premium and competes by promising to ship a receiver within 24 hours of receiving the order, or the customer will receive a rebate based on the delay. Tap here to review the details. Another approach, which we could have followed for the decision-making could have been always decide the EOQ and ROP based on our demand-estimations and our own calculations. Global negotiations to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions have so far failed to produce an agreement. In Littlefield, total operational costs are comprised of raw material costs, ordering costs and holding costs. Littlefield Initial Strategy When the simulation first started we made a couple of adjustments and monitored the performance of the factory for the first few days. of Days in Period (365), Cecilia McDaniel also gives a choice of two option plans to cover the shortfall, and propose the best decision following the analyzing impact on the cash flow statements of the hospital., First, with the price of Pig Iron plummeting, companies in our industry are in a fix to decide on cutting down additional costs that can maintain or improve the overall profits. Introduction However, observed 100% Utilization at Station #1 with the 17x more queued kits. 0 6 comments Best Add a Comment camcamtheram 2 yr. ago Registered address: Louki Akrita, 23 Bellapais Court, Flat/Office 46 1100, Nicosia, Cyprus 8. We debated whether or not these few exceptions we okay to ignore. They want your team to look into why this is occurring, and hopefully remedy the situation. We use cookies to give you the best experience possible. We knew that the initial status quo was limited by the inventory quantity. We had intense debate in the team, whether to add new machines further or not. As explained on in chapter 124, we used the following formula: y = a + b*x. 145 The lab began operations with a raw materials inventory of 160 kits and $1,000,000 cash. We know from the text that Al Beck is running two eight hour shifts so the machines are running for a minimum of 16 hours per day. It was quickly determined that the machine 1 was our bottleneck, as it was the only machine with 100% utilization and excess number of jobs in the queue. Littlefield once again has contracted with your operations management consulting team to manage their operations for this new product. Retrieved from https://graduateway.com/littlefield-technologies-simulation-batch-sizes/, The Family Tradition of Making a Huge Batch of Ravioli as a Cultural Identity, Differentiating Between Market Structures Simulation. When first approaching this game we met to strategize, forecast, make a meeting schedule, and divide the work. Figure 1: Day 1-50 Demand and Linear Regression Model 7. : COLLEGE |CARROLL SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT 0 Report on Littlefield Technologies Simulation Exercise Learn about MBA programs, applying to them, and what life is like while in one and afterwards. 1. However, to reduce holding costs and ordering costs t [ As our contracts changed, our lead times changed the problem of inventory reorder points ] After we signed to contract 3, we made few changes to the factory. Clear role definitions avoid confusion and save time. We were asking about each others areas and status. Nevertheless, although we ranked 4th (Exhibit 1: OVERALL TEAM STANDING), we believe we gained a deeper understanding of queuing theory and have obtained invaluable experience from this exercise. In the game, teams are challenged to optimize the system and maximize cash flow for Littlefield Technologies, a factory that assembles Digital Satellite System Receivers from electronic kits. With little time to waste, Team A began by analyzing demand over the first 50 days of operations in order to create a linear regression model to predict demand into the future in order to make critical operational decisions; refer to Figure 1. Decisions Made Right now I'm doing social work by purchasing the inventory and then selling it for zero revenue. We did not have any analysis or strategy at this point. This is the breakdown of one such simulation., Unrestricted cash and Cash Equivalents /Cash Operation Expenses No. We then determined our best course of action would be to look at our average daily revenue per job (Exhibit 7) and see if we could identify any days when that was less than the maximum of $1,000/job, so we could attempt to investigate what days to check on for other issues. Instant access to millions of ebooks, audiobooks, magazines, podcasts and more. Copyright 2023 service.graduateway.com. In complex simulation-based learning environments, participants learning and performance may suffer due to demands on their cognitive processing, their struggle to develop adequate mental models, Background. PMC personnel may be directly involved in combatant roles when the contract provides for the delivery of security services. REVENUE Furthermore, implementation of these changes would not affect in any of the daily operations schedules. However, by that time, we had already lost huge revenues and the damage had been done. Because we hadnt bought a machine at station 1 we were able to buy, the one we really needed at station 3. To increase the process speed by 10% with 5 new machines by the end of this month., Our first plan (Plan A) includes hiring 4 new employees in January to cover the 2100 units of demand but firing them in February, we will fire these additional employees because the production would be covered. Summary of articles. Upon initial analysis of the first fifty days of operations, the team noticed that Station 1 had reached 100% utilization several times between days 40 and 50. Here is a discussion of the pros and cons regarding the decisions we made. When the simulation first started we made a couple of adjustments and monitored the. In June we neither hire nor fire because our units of demand are covered. We made no further changes after switching to contract 3.