ABSTRACT
When the group returned from the break, Daniel thought that it would be good to re-pitch the simulation because half of the participants did not attend the first two days. * Thereafter, he continued, “Let us share a few key data points that you will need later on.” He moved to the flipchart and wrote while explaining:
First, let us start with the customer need (Figure 4.1). Our customer is requesting 17,280 T-shirts per day. On the production side, we have four stations; we are producing in three shifts of 8 hours. One operator runs each station and is replaced during breaks. It means that we are producing continuously during 24 hours, which makes a total of 86,400 seconds per day. Quick comment regarding this organization: although 3 × 8 shift operation is common in industry, it is the most challenging one because it leaves you no time to take care of your equipment or to catch up in case of backlog. Equipment problems increase backlog and backlog reduces time to maintain equipment, thereby increasing equipment breakdown. To avoid getting into this death spiral, people who use such organizations tend to hide some overcapacity or inventory to deal with unexpected disruptions. Well, this is another issue; let’s leave it for another day … Let’s refocus on our simulation.
