Break out Activity: Operations in practice

The Sandwich Problem

• You have decided to set up a sandwich making
operation. You have received many enquiries and are
not sure of the most efficient way to do this:
• In groups (4 to 5)
• Agree your approach how to manufacture and supply:
– 1 sandwich (for yourself, for lunch)
– 10 sandwiches (for your class mates)
– 100 sandwiches (for the conference)
– 10,000 sandwiches (for the daily airline order)
– 100,000 sandwiches (for the daily supermarket order)
OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT
 The Sandwich Problem
• Focus on the layout / process types, but also consider raw
materials, the variety you offer and packaging and how this may
affect your thinking.

• Your initial idea is to offer:

– 2 types of bread: Brown and White.
– 2 spread options: With or without butter
– 4 filling options: Egg, Chicken, Tuna, Salad

• Present your proposals. (PS: I am not looking for “the right

answer”, but am looking for participation and suggestions)

OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT
 The Sandwich Problem
Layout type Considerations

10

100

OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT
 The Sandwich Problem
Layout type Considerations

10,000

100,000

OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT
 The Sandwich Problem
Layout type A few considerations… (There will be many more)

1 My own kitchen It takes me 2 minutes to get my bread and food from the fridge, get the knife,
table… What layout prepare the sandwich and put it in a bag.
type is this? Fixed?
Functional?
10 Probably still my How long will this take me? They should all “look the same”. I want my friends to
own table, but it enjoy these.
soon gets
complicated. (See Do I just make 10 sandwiches, one after the other, or do I butter all the bread first…
across) or what? Which is the quickest way of doing this? If I butter all the bread first, how
do I store it until I am ready to add the fillings?

Do I actually make more than 10, as I am not sure who will want which option?

100 Maybe a cell layout? I don’t want to make all these myself. That seems inefficient and I am now
important and need to run the business. How long a time frame do I have to
produce these sandwiches? They must be fresh. It should only take 200 minutes to
Relatively high make them all one after the other. The more we do, the quicker it should be
variety of low though?? Do I get one person to do this, or do I have maybe 2 people (one white
volume? bread / one brown bread), or 4 people (one for each filling), or some other
combination?
Do I need to worry about where to store things?

I could probably do more than 100 using this method.

OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT
 The Sandwich Problem
Layout type A few considerations. (There will be many more)

10,000 Maybe a I probably need dedicated areas / equipment for the different types:i.e.
functional layout Preparing the bread. Preparing the fillings.
or a continuous
flow? I must make these efficient processes in respect of time, quantity and quality. I
need an “egg sandwich filling application expert” for example.

Each area must have adequate storage space for whatever it does.

100,000 Flow I will definitely need to automate this and create a flow production line.

100,000 a day = 4167 per hour = 70 every minute = more than 1 per second…if I
run this 24h per day.

I probably need at least 2 production lines. What if one breaks down?

How efficient does my “change over time” need to be?

OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT
 The Sandwich Problem
General considerations:

• As we discussed most processes can fit into different process types and
layout. In the real world, you would often have to experiment and test
before creating a permanent layout. Get it wrong and you have possibly a
lot of cost, time and disruption to fix it.

• Always “do the numbers”. Work out how many you need to make per unit
of time. This will help focus on what a layout could be like.

• Always consider variety. At first glance the variety of sandwiches does not
like much, but work it out. It looks like 16. So if you were making the 10
for your friends it could well be that each one is different. Variety can also
increase dramatically. If I added 2 salad options to the 16, I would then
have 64 varieties.

• A big consideration with automation is how many machines to invest in.

Get one big one and you may have the most efficient production, but what
do you do itOPERATIONS
if breaks? MANAGEMENT
 Break out Activity: Operations in practice
The Sandwich Problem
• Links to videos / pictures etc.

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2sN5g6wOBU (grote)

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRqgQ0ClNak (starbucks)

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4Sm_98UR8U (manual)

OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT