Peanut Butter Cracker Sandwich Manufacturing Module

摘要

For many engineers, their first position after obtaining a B.S. degree is in manufacturing. Jobrntitles like process engineer, product engineer, and quality engineer are common and are directlyrninvolved in manufacturing. Most engineering curricula do not cover manufacturing concepts. Arnstudent may not even have an opportunity through electives to study manufacturing since smallerrnengineering colleges rarely have a department of Manufacturing Engineering.rnA module on peanut butter cracker manufacturing was developed for the Introduction tornEngineering course taken by most engineering students in their freshman year. The objective forrnthe students is to design, build and then run a process to manufacture peanut butter crackerrnsandwiches. The culminating activity is a pilot production run where the students are assignedrnhuman operators for their process. The goal for the students is to make a profit during the pilotrnproduction run. Material costs, labor costs, quality specifications and selling price all determinernwhether or not the process was successful. The module includes activities where the studentsrnperform calculations and use Excel graphs to determine the process time required to make arnprofit, the impact of the number of operators on production, the interplay between fixed andrnvariable costs, and the effect of yield on their profit. Students are required to write operatingrnprocedures and order supplies based on predictions of the quantity of sandwiches they willrnproduce. Students also learn about quality control and process control, the cost of automation,rndevelopment costs, and challenges in training operators. After more than two weeks ofrnpreparation, the students have 10 minutes to train their operators, and then the operators run thernprocess for 10 minutes. After production day, the students write a report that includes an analysisrnof their production performance and suggested process modifications. Overall, the modulernprovides a fun and informative introduction to some fundamental manufacturing concepts.