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Case Statement

In this case study, I am hired as an engineer for a manufacturing engineering


department. This department is responsible for the selecting, justifying, and
installing of the equipment in the new factory. In this scenario, equipment is being
transported from an old location to this new location, which in this case is
approximately 3 hours away. Thus far, 1 out of 9 production lines have been
installed, with the rest of the equipment to follow in the next few months. This
facility will employ approximately 700 personnel on the factory floor. As per my
job description, I am to learn about the equipment and aid in the installation
process.
The office spaces in this facility are fairly empty but that will change as more
people are hired and transferred over each week. These offices will consist of 100
personnel from operations management, quality engineering, manufacturing
engineering, computer information systems, finance, purchasing, and human
resources. For each of these respective departments, their mangers have already
moved in. There is also a separate design engineering office with approximately 20
personnel. And lastly, the plant manager has a separate office.
In this scenario, my department has been tasked with selecting and justifying
new equipment. In this particular case, we will be analyzing the copy machines for
this facility. As of right now, there are two small copiers that were purchased for the
office. One copier was for the plant manager's office and the other for receiving
inspection. There are also a few rented small copier machines that were placed
throughout the office. From this, I am told to meet with other people in the facility
to access their needs and to learn what is required. From this assessment, I am to
provide an outline pertaining to these questions:
1. How would you find out what the needs are for copy machines?
2. What are the projects objectives? Would different people in the office have
different objectives? Are any of these objectives conflicting?
3. How can you find out what type of equipment is available and what it costs?
4. What additional considerations would you have to make in deciding on
equipment and where to physically locate it?
5. How will you develop, evaluate, and compare alternatives?
6. Who do you think would have to approve your proposal?
7. How do you think an order would actually get placed for the equipment?

8. What steps might need to be taken before the equipment actually arrives to
prepare for installation?
9. When should you follow-up to see that the equipment is meeting the needs?
10. How do the defined steps fit into the framework of the engineering design
process? Where do the tools of an economic analysis fit in?

Case Report and Solution


In approaching this problem given in this particular case study, I will be utilizing the
steps taken in the decision making process. In this decision making process outlined
in our class textbook, "Engineering Economic Analysis," there are a list of
descriptions telling what is necessary for rational decision making in many different
scenarios.
These steps include
- reorganizing the problem
- defining the goal or objective
- assembling relevant data
- identifying feasible alternatives
- selecting the criterion to determine the best alternative
- constructing the model
- predicting the outcomes for each alternative
- choosing the best alternative
- audit the results
But these steps will also take into account the ethics of engineering decision making
as well. By using these tools to access the scenario, we will be able to form an
outline based on the questions that have been given above.
To reorganize the problem, we will look at the scenario we presently have.
We currently own 2 copiers in the facility and have rented an unknown number of
copiers as well for the rest of the office. The 2 copiers that have been bought
currently serves the plant manager and receiving inspection. We are still unsure as
to how many copiers we require and for whom we need to designate the copier
machines. The next problem that we must recognize is that not all the personnel are
in the facility just yet. And relying on just the manager of each department would
not give an accurate need of what all the personnel would need. Also, we cannot
properly assess the proper usage of these copier machines because the facility is not
at full capacity so the copier machines will not be assessed at maximum usage

unless all personnel is present in the facility. We will move on to the next step of the
decision making process and further define the goal and objective.
The goal and objective is to properly assess the needs and requirements each
department and personnel requires. In this case, we will need to find out which
departments need to utilize the copier machine the most. We must also find out
more about the specifications of these copiers to see how they can be optimally used
and whether or not the bought and rented copiers have any differences in them. By
doing so, we can see which department will utilize the copier machines the most
and if there are any underutilized machines, we may have to consider having more
departments assigned to a singular copier machine. We will now move on to the
data that has been provided to us.
Thus far, we know that there are 2 copier machines that were bought and an
unknown amount of rented copier machines. All personnel are not currently in the
office and are either being transferred or hired every week. In total there should be
approximately 100 personnel in these offices. There will be 7 different departments
with a manger for each department. We currently don't know the layout of the office
building, the size of the building, the specifications of both the rented and bought
copier machines, the cost of these particular machines and others on the market, the
exact date of when the office will be done hiring, and the nature of the workers.
There are a lot of things that are unknown in this situation. Based on the
information that has been presented to us, we will now look at the alternatives we
have in approaching this problem.
To find a solution to this problem, we will first find the specifications for the
copier machines we currently have. Once the office has all of its personnel hired,
we can see how much each department utilizes each copier machine. Of course, we
will also have to place all these copier machines in various locations. The locations
of these copier machines will most likely correspond to where each department is
positioned in the office. Of course, there will be modifications for each department
for their individual needs. We will then see the usage of all the copier machines and
take surveys from each personnel to assess the copier machines. We will also take
into consideration the manager's input even more. But once we have gather more
information about the usage of these machines, we can properly assess and find
ways of optimizing the scenario. Next we will construct some kind of model from
all the data we have collected and form some kind of solution for this scenario.

For this model, we will first see that these copier machines are suitable for
use in the office. If some departments require a higher demanding copier machine,
we will take a look at whether or not the cost is viable for the work that they do. Of
course, we do not have to get the same copier machine for the entire office. This
way we can properly manage the cost and optimization of these copier machines.
Next, since we have decided to categorize the copier machines by attributing them
to each department, that is how we will asses it. Depending on whether there is high
demand from one department or low demand from another department, we will see
if a department requires more copiers or a more demanding one. On the other side
of the spectrum, we will also look at the departments with low demand for these
copier machines. In this case we will have a central location for which the
departments will share a copier machine. This way, we do not have to have idle
copier machines that are not in use. Once this model has been implemented, we will
once again analyze the office's use of the copier machines to see if the decisions that
were made actually optimized the use of the copier machines. If there are
modifications that need to be made, then the proper steps will be taken to assure that
these measures will be met.

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