Learning from a Classroom Manufacturing Exercise

INFORMS Transactions on Education

Irwin Gray¹ 

[1] School of Management, New York Institute of Technology, Old Westbury, New York 11568

关键词: experiential learning;    manufacturing complexities;    developing critical thinking;    active learning;    teaching production/operations management;    teaching with projects;    hands-on learning;    factory simulation;   

DOI  :  10.1287/ited.1100.0057

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: INFORMS

【 摘 要 】

By performing a hands-on manufacture of a paper product along a fabrication line set up in a classroom, students experience the complexities of an actual production line—how to work with people to construct a smoothly flowing line and analyze and deal with technical changes. In particular, they learn how a change in one position on the line affects the manpower, methods, and machines of the entire line. The quantitative as well as qualitative problems of batch processing, work-in-progress inventory, misutilization of labor, and even elements of product liability become “live concepts” instead of dry exercises from a book. Students in an MBA program with no real-life experiences against which to reflect what they are learning in their classes are able to experience a working fabrication line in all its complexities. They are challenged by having to design their own products and the jigs and fixtures to make them—even when they have no engineering or specialized knowledge. One group, for example, manages to...

【 授权许可】

CC BY