To my family: Thank you for not letting me drop out of the Honors College in March when I was too busy to think. It will discuss how the GradYear order management system was built and include a brief overview of the system's software and technical specifications.
TEAM ORGANIZATION
Performing: At the presentation at the end of the semester, the team had started to perform. Execution: The team performed well in the trial and production periods and received the required approval from the engineers and faculty. This gave the team numerical data to make decisions with, and it proved invaluable throughout the course of the project.
The team and faculty were pleased with the design and appearance of GradYear Classic; no major changes in materials or operations were foreseen. The goals of both production periods were to see how the team performed and to determine whether. Against the wishes of the team engineer, the author (in the role of operator 1) decided to add two grinding and suction operations to the process.
The team considered alternative methods of obtaining such material, including in-house production of the back of the frame. The author has chosen to use HTML to create the basic layouts of GradYear OMS. The GradYear OMS was entirely outside the original scope of the project.
THE FIVE STAGES OF TEAM DEVELOPMENT
PLANNING
- BACKGROUND RESEARCH
- MARKET RESEARCH
- PROBLEM DEFINITION
- PROJECT SCOPE
- PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Inquiries to some boutique owners and employees about the product idea were met with the same enthusiasm: if the team made them, they would buy them. Research into the current picture frame landscape in Oxford confirmed that nowhere was selling anything like what the team had in mind.
PRODUCT DESIGN
MATERIALS
The dimensions of the frame were designed to get the most frames (40) out of a sheet of MDF plywood (also called "wood"). Unfortunately, the dimensions of the frame were larger than 8" x 10" so the back of the frame had to be placed carefully and strategically. This joined edge allowed for easy application – a staple gun was used to attach the back of the frame to the wooden frame.
There was heated debate about whether or not to outsource the frame supports and the glass pieces. The decision to outsource the frame backgrounds and the glass pieces saved the team time and money and allowed the team to focus on other design aspects.
OPERATIONS
McPhail recommended that instead of producing every gold plastic plate during the production period, produce all the gold plastic plates before the production period. This entire operation could be done in the time it took to warm up all the other machines. In operation 2, one 4' x 11.89" piece was taken to the Laguna Sheet Router to cut out the grooves on the back of the frame.
In feature 4, two of the individual 9.49” x 11.89” parts are taken to Toyoda's CNC Mill and clamped in a specially designed clamp. The engraving was centered over the front opening of the frame, as seen in Figure 23.
PROTOTYPE
Below is a record of the original process flow from the trial period, the corrected process flow from. The original process flow from the trial periods was organized in a linear fashion along the natural boundaries of the CME factory floor. This solution proved to be completely effective, as this defect was not seen again during the rest of the trial and production periods.
The first kaizen principle that was applied was a study of operator movement at this workstation. Therefore, for the purchase of the equipment to be feasible or beneficial, the projected demand for the product will have to increase significantly.
TRIAL AND PRODUCTION
TRIAL & ORIGINAL PROCESS FLOW
The original process flow was very balanced, as the time taken to complete operations 1-4 was comparable to the time taken to complete operations 5-9. However, there is always room for improvement, and the team carefully examined the process and products of the trials to try to identify potential areas of the production line where lean manufacturing principles could be applied. Upon close inspection, the frames produced from the original process flow had far too many "fuzzies" or rough edges.
Although satisfactory for most purposes of this process, MDF plywood is essentially just glued sawdust. Another problem was that some of the sawdust had stuck to the frame - and had subsequently been sealed to the surface during operation 6.
PRODUCTION & CORRECTED PROCESS FLOW
Before the trial and production periods, it was difficult to determine the cycle time of the process. A traditional benefit of cycle time calculation is that it can give an idea of the scale of production; however, in this process, cycle time was by no means indicative of production rate [9]. However, for the purposes of this product, the takt time cannot be calculated because there was no official request or demand beyond the goal of 39 frames for the 39 members of the Kapstone CME Senior Class of 2019.
If this 4' x 11.89" part was run by the Laguna Sheet Router in function 2, it would still take 1000 seconds because the program was designed to run 5 frames at once; the program would have to be rewritten if it were to be manufactured only 1 frame.This production rate was established by Fanning and was based purely off machine cycle times and did not take handling time into account.
OPTIMIZED PROCESS FLOW
Working around the CME plant floor plan to create the most optimal floor plan for this process was more of a challenge than the team anticipated. While the team was able to create a linear flow between the trial and production periods, a circular flow, as shown earlier in Figure 27, with all the machines closer together, would have been more advantageous. If GradYear became its own business and leased its own space, the new floor plan would greatly increase efficiency by reducing time spent walking and moving materials.
If the machines were also optimized to the specifications of GradYear Classic, the time spent on calibration and reconfiguration could be reduced. All these small changes can make the cycle time reduce and the production speed increase to 20 images per hour.
DEFECTS & SOLUTIONS
The solution to the staining was to use fine grit sanding blocks, brushing them over the surface of the birch veneer. During one of the test periods, a frame came out of the Toyoda CNC Mill with a large miscut, as seen in Figure 31. The machine had been operating normally, but the misplacement of the frame caused the miscut in the front opening.
When the frame is placed in the handles of the Toyoda CNC Mill, the frame is not fully seated against the stop. The operator was reminded to be careful when inserting the frame into the handles, and to be sure that the frame was rammed against the stop.
KAIZEN IMPROVEMENTS
After successfully implementing the first and second poka-yoke devices, the team identified another measurement that could be poka-yoke. If the error was caught in the first frame, it was possible to rework some of the following 4 frames. From the original layout of the assembly station, the operator had to bend down to dispose of debris during frame assembly and had to bend down to place the finished frames in the box on the floor.
The operator described this process as "giving a home to all the tools" at the assembly station. Moving the finished frame box location and mounting the shade to the assembly station were two simple things that were done in approximately 10 minutes that greatly reduced the time needed to complete operations 8-11.
STRATEGIC PLANNING
RISK ANALYSIS
Fortunately, the team's engineer took a conservative design approach and refused to start prototyping until she was almost 100 percent sure it was the perfect design. McPhail was very helpful in developing the production processes and worked with the team engineer to make everything run as smoothly as possible. After speaking with patent attorneys who came to the Manf 451 Design-Product Realization class, the team was ultimately told that its simplicity could not be patented or otherwise.
The team can only hope that its first-mover advantage will be enough to offset the risk of competition. As for macroeconomic shifts, GradYear does not have the budget to pay for lobbyists to oppose these changes—the team can only do their part as individual citizens to keep the macro economy stable.
MARKETING PLAN
The GradYear Order Management System (OMS) was an extension of the GradYear project designed to challenge the author and make full use of her MIS knowledge. Without a contract with one of the major shipping firms, shipping can be as low as $13 per frame; GradYear OMS was designed for intake only at this time. This technique is called wireframing; is a way to visually represent the framework of the future web page.
After wireframing the page schemas, the author determined the database tables needed to incorporate functionality into GradYear OMS. GradYear OMS will be freely given to the future owners of GradYear and reconfigured as needed.
FINANCIALS
GRADYEAR ORDER MANAGEMENT SYSTEM
- INITIAL DESIGN
- DATABASE ORGANIZATION
- SOFTWARE SPECIFICATIONS
- TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS
- USAGE
The GradYear OMS is designed for the hypothetical future scenario in which the CME Student Advisory Board (SAB) uses GradYear as their annual fundraiser. The GradYear OMS is designed to be used by employees to track orders, keep in touch with customers and easily order inventory. The GradYear OMS is built with many tooltips, modals, and alerts to give the user help when needed.
Throughout GradYear OMS, the author has built in success, warning, and error alerts to inform the user whether their action was successful or not. GradYear OMS was also a huge success for the author in terms of designing and building an efficient and powerful system.
