interactive learning: simulating the design process david kazmer university. mass. amherst harvard:...

Interactive Learning:Simulating The Design Process

David Kazmer

University. Mass. Amherst

Harvard: Because wisdom can’t be taughtRick Reis: The mid-wife can’t have the baby

Abstract vs. Experiential

ABSTRACTWORLD

symbolsequationsgraphssketches

fundamentalconcepts

modelingsimulations

imaginedproduct

productrequirements

physicalembodiment

experiencedproduct

prototypingtesting

buildingdissection

EXPERIENTIALWORLD

Method Overview • Design Simulation

Interactive Learning

• Hardware Decomposition

• Role Playing

• Case Studies

• Student Lecturing

• Design Simulation


Hardware Decomposition

• Arena: Freshman Course

• Strengths– Hands-On Experience

• “Real” Engineering

• See How It Works

• Weaknesses– Alienating– No Knowledge Guarantee


Role Playing

• Junior Pro-Seminar & Senior Design Course

• Strengths– First Person Thought – Decision vs. Analysis Basis

• Weaknesses– High Risk & Stress– Passive Audience


Hardware Construction

• Senior & Graduate Design

• Strengths– Design Realization– Attachment

• Weaknesses– Quality Variance– Control & Thought– Limited Scope


Case Studies

• Graduate Design & Manufacturing

• Strengths– Focused & Controlled– Many Domains– Soft Wisdom

• Weaknesses– Availability in Engineering

• Limited & Dated


Student Lecturing

• Graduate Design & Manufacturing

• Strengths– Research Depth– Teaching Pedagogy

• Weaknesses– High Risk– High Stress


Summary

• Different Activities Have S & Ws– Know When to Use What


Better

Better

ControlledOutcome

FullImmersion

NoInterest

HighRisk

AlwaysRemembered

HighDensity

NoInfo.

LongForgotten

DesignPrototype

RolePlaying

StudentLectures

CaseStudies

HardwareDecomp.

DesignPrototype

RolePlaying

StudentLectures

CaseStudies

HardwareDecomp.

‘Normal’Lecture

‘Normal’Lecture

Design Simulation: Log Splitters

• Goal: Model Conflicting Objectives

• Approach– Product Development Issues– Role Playing with Six Teams– Limited Decision Domains– Limited Information– Deterministic Performance– Turn-Based with 4 Turns


Teams & Objectives• Management: Max. Company Profitability

• Design: Max. Customer Satisfaction

• Manufacturing:Max. Plant Utilization

• Distribution: Max. Sales

• Customer #1: Requirements Met– Low Cost & No Accidents

• Customer #2: Requirements Met– Higher Throughput


Teams & Decisions

• Management: Labor Levels & Unit Pricing

• Design: Product Design

• Manufacturing: Equipment & Assembly

• Distribution: Commission Level

• Customer #1: None

• Customer #2: None


Rules

• Four meeting times

• Teams share select information

• No more than two groups can gather at a given time

• Public statement of decisions

• Assessment & discussion


Handouts

Log Splitters, Inc.

RULES

Teams may not share evaluation criteria.Teams can selectively share other information.Team discussions should not be overheard.No more than one messenger can be sent from a team at a given time.

SCHEDULE:

9:45 Team formation & clarification

9:55 Teams send messenger, if desired9:59 Messengers return10:03 Teams send messenger, if desired10:07 Messengers return10:11 Teams send messenger, if desired10:15 Messengers return10:19 Teams send messenger, if desired10:23 Messengers return

10:27 Management Debriefing

10:30 Assessment

10:35 StatementsDesignManufacturingDistributionCustomer #1Customer #2Management

10:45 Adjourn

PROSPECTUS

Log Splitters, Inc.HISTORY

This company was founded twelve years ago by J ane Thomas, owner of AtlanticEastern Corporation and 20,000 acres of forest. In the foresting operations, a needdeveloped for on-site splitting of timber remnants for production of firewood to besold to secondary markets for home use. Mrs. Thomas developed log splittingmachinery for this purpose.

Subsequent interest in this equipment has led to the creation of Log Splitters, Inc.Equipment sales have been climbing at a steady rate and further investment is requiredto maintain growth. To raise this capital, the company is preparing for an InitialPublic Offering.

FINANCIALS

Year 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996Sales (MM) 21 23 22 28 34 43 55*

Profits (MM) 0 2 (2) (1) 2 7 15*

* Estimated

PUBLIC OFFERING

Log Splitters, Inc. will maintain 50% private ownership. The company proposesvaluation at a price:earnings ratio of 10:1, below market average for equipmentmanufacturers. This would value the company at $150,000,000.

As such, the company offers 7,500,000 shares at $10/ share.

PROSPECTUS


Handouts

Log Splitters, Inc.

MANAGEMENT BRIEFING

Your executive team was brought in (from a prestigious consulting firm) to help thecompany go public. Your primary concern is to make the public offering a success –your 1996 pay is $200,000 plus 1% of the firm’s equity.

Mr. Thomas indicated that the firm was in good shape, but now that you’ve beenmanaging it for two months, you find that there is plenty of room for improvement.In fact, both the design and manufacturing are inefficient - you could increase profitsby 30% just by halving these organizations. Worse, the sales projection in theprospectus are overly optimistic. You missed the 1995 sales figures, and the 1996estimates seem way off. If you don’t clear sales of $30 million in ’96, the companywon’t make a profit and you’ll all be out of jobs.

Moreover, you feel that the design team is developing equipment that is not costoptimized. You need every dollar from each design while increasing the number ofunits sold. At the end of class, you have to decide:

- whether to reduce the design and manufacturing organizations- which design and what features to implement- final unit pricing

As such, you’ll need to get information from the customer and your teams to makesome of these hard decisions.

YOUR GRADE (PRIVATE):95 - $10 million profits85 - $5 million profits75 - $1 million profits65 - 0 profits

Profits = Sales - CostsProfits = (# units sold * price per unit) - (# units sold * material per unit) -

(# workers * 250,000) - (investments) - (# lawsuits * 200,000) -5,000,000 fixed costs

Log Splitters, Inc.

MANUFACTURING BRIEFING

Your team has worked for Log Splitters since its inception fifteen years ago.Currently, there are ten people on the floor, providing annual resources of:

- 15,000 hours of production- 5,000 hours of assembly and test

On the whole, morale is OK. You work hard when needed, but admit that you couldhandle increased production. Also, you’ve seen some poor designs come in and haveoffered advice, but the designs never seem to improve. You just can’t understand it.

Worse, there have been rumors that the new management team is looking to reducecosts. You don’t know what that means exactly, but it doesn’t sound good. If theytake out even two of the new guys, it means you’ll all have to work harder. And ifsales go up, you might not be able to meet demand.

YOUR GRADE (PRIVATE):95 - all ten people remain employed and meet production85 - eight people remain employed and meet production75 - eight people remain employed and don’t meet production65 - five people remain employed

SOME EXTRA DATA :1. By invest ing $500,000 in new equipment , you can increase product ivit y by 10%2. Mat erial cost s can be reduced by 10% by invest ing $500,000 in recycling equip.3 . Each person cont ribut es 2 ,000 hours of work per year4. If you eliminat e welding, you could reduce assembly t ime by half5 . You can f reely t rade bet ween product ion and assembly t ime6. The product ion t ime per assembled unit is proport ional t o t he number of sub-

assemblies in t he design

# sub-assy’s product ion t ime assy & test t ime6 30 minut es 15 minut es8 35 minut es 17.5 minut es10 40 minut es 20 minut es12 45 minut es 22.5 minut es14 50 minut es 25 minut es


HandoutsLog Splitters, Inc.

DESIGN BRIEFING

Your team of ten people develops all the log splitter designs. Historically, you’ve soldonly one design, The Hacker, but have nearly developed two additional models whichthe company could sell in 1996. Generally, your concerns are the same as yourcustomers.

THE HACKER

Uses a moving blade to split logs. This operation provides for use of a lower costmotor and components but requires more time and care by the operator. Details:

- requires no additional investment- cuts 2 logs per minute- $800 material costs- 12 sub-assemblies, can be reduced to 10 by investing $50,000 in advanced mfg equip.- averages 2 accidents/ 1,000 sales- each accident has resulted in an average $200,000 settlement out of court

THE AWL

Uses a stationary blade and moves the wood to split logs. This provides the additionalbenefits of moving the wood out of the machine after each cut for increased speed andsafety. Details:

- will require additional $1 million in development costs- cuts 4 logs per minute- $1,200 material costs- 10 sub-assemblies - can be reduced to 9 by investing $50,000 in advanced mfg equip.- less than 1 accident/ 1,000 sales - this can be reduced to 0 by welding on a metal shroud

THE SPIKER

Utilizes a proprietary rotary cutting motion to rip logs apart. This provides forextremely fast, safe, and economical cutting. Details:

- will require $2 million in development costs- cuts eight logs per minute- 95% chance of functional success, should have a fallback design- $1,000 material costs- 10 sub-assemblies - can be reduced to 9 by investing $50,000 in advanced mfg equip.- No significant accident modes

YOUR GRADE (PRIVATE): Same as customer #1 & customer #2, whichever is lower.

Log Splitters, Inc.

DISTRIBUTOR BRIEFING

You are Log Splitters’ primary distribution channel. You don’t use their equipmentdirectly, rather you distribute to eight retail chains geared towards the generalcontractor. Using the sales history, you know the demand curve as:

2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 7000 8000

25000

20000

15000

10000

50000

0

2 cuts/min

4 cuts/min

8 cuts/min

Retail Cost Per Unit

Sales

Volume/Year

You will charge a commission on each unit you distribute. This gets added to the

equipment price, so its in your best interest to sell many units with a high

commission…you can select between commissions of 250, 500, or 1000 per unit.

Your Grade (PRIVATE):

95 - $5 million profits



65 - $0 profits

profits = (#units * commission) - (#lawsuits * $100,000/lawsuit)


Handouts

Log Splitters, Inc.

CUSTOMER #1 BRIEFING

You own a 200 acre farm in rural Massachusetts and use wood on the property to heatyour home during the winter. As such, the amount of wood you cut per year is prettylow. What you want, then, is safe, easy, and low cost method for splitting wood.Speed of operation doesn’t really matter. To summarize:

n low cost : less t han $3,000n absolut ely no chance of accident s

Your Grade (PRIVATE) :95 - Bot h of above requirement s are met85 - One of above requirement s is met75 - None of t he requirement s are met

Log Splitters, Inc.

CUSTOMER #2 BRIEFING

You own 4000 acres of wooded property which you use for a commercial logging andfirewood operation. Roughly half your profits come from the sale of firewood – yousell a lot of it. What you want, then, is something fast, efficient, safe, easy, and lowcost method for splitting wood. To summarize:

n low cost : less t han $5,000n low chance of accident s, less t han 0 .001% per yearn at least six cut s per minut e

Your Grade (PRIVATE) :95 - All of t he above requirement s are met85 - Two of above requirement s are met75 - One of t he requirement s is met65 - None of t he requirement s are met


Interesting Observations

• “My grade is based on this?”

• “There was no way we could win”

• “They lied to us”

• “We don’t know what to do”

• “Interesting”


Results

• From two offerings:– Scenario is too complex– Provide theoretical basis before session– Some non-participants & intra-team conflicts

• Students did benefit:– Interesting– Diverse experience– More participatory course atmosphere


Conclusions• All Learning Is Interactive

– Otherwise brain disengaged

• Course as an interactive experience– Utilize constant experimentation– Discuss pedagogy with students– Prepare for failure

• Broader Issues– Relation to distance learning– Training vs. education: CAD vs. viscoelasticity


interactive learning: simulating the design process david kazmer university. mass. amherst harvard:...

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